Here in the wilderness of Balkans (and probably most of east/ south east Europe), acquiring pdfs on high seas of internet is still a thing.
TTRPGs can be very cheap hobby, or practically free. I played PF1 in a group where no one owned any of the books. All we used is PFSRD. Dice sets can be dirt cheap, i think my brother bought pack of 20 sets for couple of euros from AliExpress. Smartphones are pretty much standard, so you don't need paper and pen, there are form fallible pdf sheets and you are good to go, you have dice roller app. I have most of my dm stuff on my phone too (I use Obsidian app). In effect, we played only using our phones and digital free resources. For minis, we used spare change, like 1-2-5 cent coins ( i have small jar full of those small coins, totaling probably only around 2-3 euros) and for larger critters, we would just cut out cardboard box to appropriate sized square.
For 5e, similar setup. We play theater of mind, so no minis. All character sheets are on shared folder in dropbox in form fillable pdfs. DM stuff is in dropbox and on Obsidian. We do have dices, but like i said, those were dirt cheap. As a group, we bought 3 core books, but they mostly collect dust on the shelf.
TTRPGs can get expensive if you like buying physical books for multiple games, gaming accessories, minis and terrains and such. But for base play, you can do it for almost 0 euros even without raiding on the high seas.
