Hotplate/stirrer
A 24/40 organic chemistry kit
Buchner Funnel/Flask
Water Aspirator
Soxhelt

A couple of different solvents, few alchohols, DCM, toluene, acetone. That's just my opinion it depends on what your interested in, but that should be possible with a few hundred dollars and good sourcing

What reactions are you interested in? Where will you be starting?

What you need for a extractions will be substantially different than if your primary interest is in synthesis.

Extractions are a good way to get your feet wet with some basic principles and lab technique.

Budget is the wrong place to start. A lab setup can expand to fill almost any available budget.

The question should take the form of the most practical/efficient way to perform reaction X safely and properly, and if that can't be done on the budget, can a few acceptable corners be cut?

A basic extraction could make use of a high end rotovap and commercial grade chemical vacuum pump, each of which will break that budget, but neither of which are necessary for the procedure. Then again, you can pull off an extraction with nothing more than Walmart or hardware store equipment.

The first thing I would build would be an improvised fume hood and extractor - safety first! Even common extraction solvents produce hazardous/flammable vapors which need to be evacuated. Ghetto cookbook apartment kitchen extractions often don't, but those are what we try and avoid.

After that, it would be a combination hotplate and magnetic stirrer.

A Buchner funnel and water aspirator can be had cheaply enough and will save you substantial sums of time.

From there move on to a 24/40 borosilicate glassware sufficient for a distillation apparatus with a vapor-in-spiral Graham condenser.

From there you can move on to bigger and better things.

The catalogs are porn for geeks, but that also makes it overwhelming when getting started. I certainly want all that stuff, you probably want it all too, but not everything is essential.

Starting by thinking about what you need helps assemble a logical order for things, as you indicated that purchases have to be spread out for reasons of money.

The actual numbers will vary based on your suppliers. I know I've overpaid substantial sums to stay within my vendor comfort zone. Acquisition of lab equipment and reagents for a clandestine lab is not the place for price beats all comparison shopping.

Having spent a small fortune over the last year of my working life on laboratory related items if I were doing it in a less haphazard function this is what I'd buy (although some items I'd buy several of like beakers and flasks):

2 L, 1 L, 500 ml, 250 ml, 100 ml, 50 ml round bottom flasks.  
graduated Beakers 600 ml, 500 ml, 250 ml and 100 ml
graduated cylinders 1/2 liter, 250, & 100 ml
1 short and 1 long Vigreux column
West Condenser, 1 short and 1 long
Allign Condenser, medium
Adapters:  105 vacuum, 75 with thermometer, and a med length straight adapter
Soxhlet (make sure it fits the Allign condenser or buy a set)

Powder funnel

125 ml or 250 ml pressure equalizing addition funnel

Filtering setup - buchner + 1 L Vacuum Flask + #1 and #4 Whatman Paper

Brown glass bottles - 1 Liter most used size, 1/2 liter next most used size

Vacuum dessicator

Good quality scale, one manual and one electronics

Separatory Funnels 1 L, 500 ml, 250ml, 125 ml & 60 ml

Heating mantles and controllers
Stirbars + megnetic stirrer
Vacuum pump (Savant Gel pumps are great workhorses with decent vacuum for most tasks)
Fluke or Omega digital thermometer + thermocouples

Don't know what it's called but it's a solvent recovery condensor - it's got a fat part at the bottom (might be called hickman).  

Lattice and assorted clamps will set you back a couple hundred dollars if you get them used.

Little stuff adds up.  Like glass tubing and corks and ground glass stoppers.

Since a lot of this stuff was had at cheap auction prices it has become the norm here.  My hsuband prefers working with oil bath while I really like heating mantles so your working methods need to be taken into account.

Salat

We have one of those but it doesn't get used much.  Depends on what you're doing.

I was trying to think of what things do we use the most.  We spend a lot of time doing dishes.  Things like vacuum are useful for a lot of different types of chemistry.

For extractions, a percolator is nice and I used mine a lot, but you could make those from bottles.

Salat

salat, why does he prefer the oil bath?  I never looked back once I got a mantle and got rid of that stinking fried-chicken-smelling mess.

100$+ Heating mantle for your largest flask
50$+ Magnetic stir plate with heatproof top
50$  PID controller + thermocouple to control heating mantle (EBAY)
200$+ 24/40 distillation kit
40$ Buchner funnel
20$ Aspirator

We've had that discussion - oil bath vs mantle a few times and it comes down to personal preferences and skill.  He says he gets finer control of temperature with an oil bath.  Also a bit more flexibility in size- although he has different size fry babys.  If your flask is maybe one size smaller than the mantle you can use it but it doesn't heat as well.

I kind of think it is because that is what he's been using for 50 years so that's what he's comfortable with.  I've used both and water and sand and like the mantles best.  I don't have the fineness of temperature adjustment he does but perhaps a better temperature controller than a dimmer would help.

Salat

I guess another way of looking at it would be if you had 3k to spend, what would you buy?...spending all of it!

Though it was 11 years ago and prices are a bit up since then, my alter ego got equipped with everything needed for synthEsis--including some reagents---for about $1600. Today, I would guess the same gear would eat about $2200. But it's way different buying it piece by piece over years. Most things are things you have to have to even do it. Show-stoppers... things that if you don't have, you can't proceed. You really need all of what you need all at once, if you know what I mean.

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