New to old CJs

That all depends, right now I have rebuilt or redone everthing on my jeep but the body, I have somewhere around $6500-$8000, no new Jeep that I know of could have come close to that in payments. It all depends on what you do and what you start with. heck you could buy a 3 year old Wrangler and still spend $2000 on it for a lift, tires nad rims and still not have what you want and you'd have at least $10k in it and it wouild have 1 weaker axle, transmission and a crappy transfercase in it with a rear driveshaft that was 13" long and prone to leak without $400 spent on the transfercase and a new driveshaft that cost another $250 just to remedy the problem.
It just all depends.
Half the fun is in building the darn thing.