The desire to make music and a pulse. Whether anyone wants to hear it is irrelevant.

Come to think of it, we can do a hell of a lot with freebies. Add in BigCat's own stuff and you're set for samples as well. Zero expenditure.

Wow was making a big freebie list and it got deleted... Ah well didn't need those hours of my life...

Hey, I saw that too, where did it all go? Scook to the rescue.

What do you need?  A good starting point would be:
 
- 3 or 4 guitars
- a bass
- 2 or 3 keyboards
- Control Surface
- Seventy-eleven VST FX & VIs
- SONAR
- Komplete Ultimate
- Everything from IKM
- 3 amps
- 6 amp sims
- Mixer
- a handful of mics
- BiaB
- Some other DAW
- A Super-duper PC
- Several terabytes of SSD/HD space
- Off-site backup storage and tested backup process
- Lifetime Groove 3 sub
- Good studio monitors
- Good headphones
- SonarWorks
- ARC System 2
- A professionally treated room
- 400A electric service
- Automatic backup power generator
- Power conditioner
 
Once you have all of this and have it configured, you'll be broke and divorced; qualified to write and perform The Blues and/or Country/Western.
 
I'm not there yet, but the Deals forum is my guide 

bigcatt
The list was motivated by noticing that, especially after buying new glasses, I'm broke but that I have some version or other of almost everything on the list and maybe I don't need GAS so much as using what I have and actually learning how to make music and avoid runon sentences.

IMHO, here is an experiment to try.  Lock in with what you have right now and make a goal of actually competing 4 pieces (songs, scores etc. whatever you work with) of material start to finish with just what you have now. You will probably be surprised and somewhat cured of GAS at the end of this experiment.
P.S. Also helpful to stay out of the "deals forum".

It's not the money, its the stuff.

I'm a firm believer that music is made in Heaven. We just do our best in the endless endeavor to put it all together and make it feel good.

It's not the honey, it's the luv.

Don't forget binary.