You can't buy XYZ piece of equipment until you come across a vendor selling it, the gating of that equipment is therefore gated by when you meet that trader, not by how much money you have.
That would be some linear game.
You may buy basically anything that's offered through vendors in Elex's first hour as the game is openworld and you can reach each of them by flying past trashmobs.
There is only one vendor not possible to reach in the first hour because you need $1000 to hire him, a huge sum seemingly impossible to gather that early.
I don't know - I have haggling (which seems to get you very little? Or maybe you need other skills to make it more effective), I have trophy 1 and thieving 1 - because skill points are too precious and I simply chose to put more into combat etc (which is so common). I am not filthy rich (at most I accumulated about 10,000 elexit which I have spent on a great many things) - so basically I am going to have to waste playing time looking for ways to scrape together this amount e.g. hunting, gathering plants, making jewellery etc. Sure, I can do it, but it's not fun (to me at any rate).
Haggling is IIRC -5% pricedrop and has two levels. Not much, right? Well, when you start buying natural elex, then we'll talk.
Thieving 1 is basically enough, don't steal crap items from people, just cash.
Trophy level 2 however is superimportant, I'd say stuff trashmobs drop on it's level 2 approximately sells for 50 and you'll be swimming in thousands by selling teeth, pelts and etc.
To close the circle. You need $ to buy natural elex which is then used for upping stats (hint: first visit Alrik, then south abessa alb separatist trader in converter).
There is nothing wrong with boosting STR, DEX and CON on level up, but elex pots are an integral part of the game. Without them I don't see how would anyone reach almost 100 in an attribute required for skills/weapons. How come?
Attribute 1-30 needs 1 point to improve by 1
30-60 needs 2 points to improve by 1
60+ needs 5 points to improve by 1
Each level up gets you 10 points to distribute. Drinking each (Medium) Elex potion gives you 2 points. These pots are not cheap to brew.