I suspect your best value for money is to get a sahving sharp honed razor from one of the members here. They're listed in the User Gallery. You won't need to worry about it being sharp enough to get a great shave and you can be pretty confident of the quality of the blades there. Any questions will gladly be answered by the seller. After that all you really need is a good strop and those are there too.

Personally, I don't use a brush and soap (yet?) and you might not have to either if you go with a non-arosol shaving cream (like in a tube for example). With a member keened blade you also won't need to worry about a hone for a couple of months or so and if you're real good with the razor, don't mistreat it and use another strop with paste you'll go even longer before having to buy and learn about honing on a stone, or pay someone to do that for you.

That's a razor for somewhere around $30-$60 (pay for quality if you can, not 'collectibility') and a strop for about $30-$40 initially.

Another $30-$60 a month or few later for the paste/compounds and appropriate strop.

Hones will come eventually and you really should think about that 3" Norton 4000/8000 grit combination stone at $70.

There's my 2¢. I'm no expert, but I recently weighed all these options myself.

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