A lot of newbies tend to think only the cost of a 2nd hand camera body + kit lens and therefore erroneously think that the cost of going into DSLR is comparable to using a brand new prosumer camera.
For DSLR, you will almost for sure need to buy more lens + accessories (such as tripod, filters, extra batteries, extra memory card, flash, etc.) and also costs and time for maintenance (dry cabinet, sensor cleaning etc.).
For e.g., just a single good lens can easily cost as much as the camera body; a good tripod will cost >$300 and a good flash is between $300-$600.
Eventually, you will need to spend more than $2,000 easily even if you buy a 2nd hand DSLR body with kit lens at below $1,000.
You really need to find out what you want : type of photography (macro/close-up, candid, still life, abstract, sports, landscape etc.) and what kind of image quality you desire and the type of light condition you shoot mostly in.
Some types of lenses and camera bodies are more suited for certain types of photography and lens quality varies very widely. A cheap 70-300mm lens with small aperture cost only about $200-$400 but a good one costs over $1,000-$2,800.
Moreover, many people's interests in photography wane not very long after getting into it. Those who have gotten into DSLR and eventually exited not very long after are no longer here to give you advices. While many of them have sold their gears in the buy/sell section of clubsnap, many still have their equipment sitting in their dry cabinet but no time (due to waned interests) to shoot.
At the end of the day, you need to first find out what you want to shoot, the costs of various equipments and see whether your interests in photography can be sustained before deciding on what type of equipment is appropriate within your budget.
My advice is : if you don't know yet, don't fall into the pithole which many newbies fell into : buy into a cheap DSLR camera body + kit lens which falls within their low budget and then slowly realise that they need to spend much more than what they have thought because they didn't do enough homework before hand.
