You can get into brewing pretty reasonably, starting off with extract brewing, and fermenting int a bucket.
I think the one thing that is necessary is having a kettle big enough to do a full boil. A lot of starter kits have you do a partial boil and then to add water to your concentrated boil. I never had success with that method.
So, for a 5 gallon batch, a minimum 7.5 gallon kettle is required, 10 gallon kettle even better. Boil overs are a mess and you want to do anything you can to contain that.
You can go either aluminum or stainless, I've got both, LOL
If you have questions, feel free to ask!
One of us should be able to help.