LOL... click bait... gotcha! 
What am I gonna do about my new habit? Anyone wanna give me a loan? I did the math and to get going well I need around $2500... any takers? Charge me 10-15% interest... good deal eh?
ARGHHHHHH!
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Start slow. Of course HA is addicting, but if you budget to do a couple of things at a time you will have fun doing it.
Get a job in the multi-family housing industry. My record is 15 devices in one day from apartments that people have moved out. Got 3 D/W sensors, Xfinity keypad and motion sensor today. (not to mention I pick up change while cleaning out the apartment, today was 32.50 in quarters and bills, did not count the other 2 LB. of pennys, nickles and dimes.) ;} . I know that you posted this in jest, I did not. I have a table in front of me that has 7 D/W sensors, 4 motion sensors, 1 weird, won't pair (yet) motion sensor on it that I thru batteries in and set up just to see if they work, paired them, dashboarded them, and have the ability to take the temperature of a pc. of glass in a 6" grid. (table is glass)
WAF is in the negative range... need to pull the batteries and throw them in a box for future use!!! Or just walk around the yard sticking them to everything out there, adding them to the -ohhh- I am not going to count them that are allready there.
Bwahhhhhhhaaaaaaaaa ;/
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Get hooked on Xiaomi devices. Pickup some Trådfri Outlets and/or Trådfri repeaters and they'll keep the Zigbee mesh stable, and the Xiaomi devices happy. They're small, stylish, well designed, responsive, and generally good quality. For now anyway, the current devices have the tiny cross to bare of not being fully Zigbee 2.0 compliant, but the Trådfri repeaters do a nice job of keeping them in line. Mine are as stable as anything else I own.
You can go far on a limited budget with them.
When we bought our house and started taking care of some immediate needs, I thought it had three wired smoke detectors, so I bought three wired Nest Protects and one wireless for a room without one. The house actually has seven wired smoke detectors - I missed four by just being constantly tired during closing! So, that investment was bigger than unexpected...
I planned to begin with two or three Lutron Caseta dimmers or switches and take my time installing more. Four months later, we have 13 Caseta dimmers installed or switches plus seven pico remotes in-use, and two in boxes that I'm installing over the weekend.
Plus installed a DSC security system with a good number of wired and wireless sensors.
Plus a Rheem hybrid water heater with Econet.
Plus the many devices I brought from our old rental, plus a handful new zigbee switces, Ecobee thermostat, and soon a home power monitor. So yea, it's an addiction and I need help. Seriously someone please send help before my wife catches on to how much we've spent.
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Nest interconnect can be mixed with other wire interconnected devices (sort of). Nest does not use a wire for their interconnect. Regardless of whether or not the Nest Protect is 110/120v or battery powered, they always use wireless interconnect over Thread.
So while a non-Nest branded smoke detector will not activate a Nest Protect and vice-versa, the two different brands can be installed in the same location. You simply don't use the interconnect wire with the Nest Protects.
I should have stated that this solution would have been against code in my area (and probably most others as well). Code states that it must be the same model smoke detector at all wired locations.
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Google seems to state otherwise. I'm sure you know the code for your area though, and that's really what we're talking about here.
From that document I linked to:
The latest codes say wired and wireless interconnect are equal. With wireless, you can add alarms without adding expensive wiring.
Interconnect is the way that the Nest Protect in the hallway tells all of your other Nest Protects when there’s a problem. Both Nest Protect (Wired 120V) and Nest Protect (Battery) have interconnect.
We looked at many different ways to connect Nest Protects together and consulted with fire safety experts such as the NFPA along the way. In the end, wireless interconnect was the best option.
That's stating that a wireless interconnect is equal to a wired one (red wire). What I'm saying is that code requires that all mains powered (120V) smoke detectors use the same interconnect. So you can't combine different smoke detectors using different types of interconnect. E.g. can't combine 120V Nest with a 120V Kiddie smoke detector that uses the red wire because all must be able to sound simultaneously.
My local fire code requires they are all replaced at the same time, with the same brand. But yea wireless interconnect definitely isn't a problem. But this is where Nest is a great solution, because my single battery powered Protect essentially acts like a wired smoke detector in that it does interconnect with the rest.
