You reminded me that building use to be considerably cheaper than buying.
I remember my teen years, doing odd jobs to get some cash, buying a part at a time until the build was complete. Worrying that if you didn't scrap together enough parts soon there may be an architecture change. Finally getting it all together and the feeling of pure bliss installing the OS, troubleshooting drivers, installing this or that. Good times.
They sure were. Building is what got me into this crazy field. Abusing VBscript (and myself in the process) got me into my software developer era later on!