Just to follow up on OM's post, remember that a lot of this depends on whether you seriously think you will ever make money with your songs. Like I'd love to have a vintage Les Paul, but that would cost 5 figures and I will never again make a dime from music. So obviously it would be a waste of money I don't have. So maybe you live without that $3300 Neumann U87 Ai mic and get a used Shure 58 for 50 bucks to sing into. Between keyboards, guitars, racks, synth modules and such I probably have $10k tied up but a lot of that is stuff I gathered over years when I DID actually have an income from music.

And since it all gets sold when I die and the proceeds go to the 2 animal shelters I have named in my will, it's all good. I get to play with the toys now and they get money when I leave.