Congratulations!
Ugh... I've been cheap and only am using garbage equipment, enough to get started I guess. I think I'm pretty close to my 1 year anniversary and still using a Baofeng and a bunch of junk gear acquired from local hamfests (total value, including my license, baofeng, bunch of LMRS radios, ancient Kenwood HT, ancient scanner, all less than $100...) I doubt my experience with the stuff is nearly as good as or fulfilling to others, not to mention that I still don't have equipment for bands that I'm licensed to operate, but it's what I wanted and expected from what I spent - the learning/hack effort to get it working was worth it in my opinion!