It looks like I'm a little bit late to the party, I just saw this build today for the first time.
Welcome to the board.
There are a LOT of very knowledgeable people here on the board and you can learn tons by just simply reading other peoples builds.
As in all things there is a right way to do things and a wrong way to do things, sometimes unfortunately we don't have the tools to do things the "right way" all the time and a lot of times the right way costs a lot of money because of the tools you have to buy to make it happen, however the good news is Harbor freight is your friend, the idea behind the business model is the tools are designed for "one time use" and are very reasonable in price.
As in most product lines there are different levels of quality and features, they have the El cheapo, the Heavy Duty and the PROfessional series.
For things like drills I buy the PRO series, for things like impact drills and grinders I buy the HD series, you get the idea, I never buy the El cheapo because they may or may not make it through your first project
Harbor freight is also good for things like car dolly's, BIG 60 gallon air compressors, PRO series tool boxes, things of that nature.
Lowes is an excellent source for common fasteners, nut's bolt's etc, but for hard to find fasteners go to Ace hardware.
I'm going along for the ride, if you find yourself scratching your head and have any questions about anything on the pickup feel free to send me a private message.