-Your undoubtably going to get a huge number of suggestions on your question, 99% are going to be absolutly correct and almost all of them completely diffrent .

My suggestion is to contact your local edult education people and take a course. They are usually held in well equipped high school shops and the let you make the project of your choice under the supervison of a shop teacher.

The benifit here is you get to build something you want to build
(might I suggest a work bench) and get to play with all the tools so you can make better evaluation of the suggestions your going to get here, Power tools are expensive and do not do "EVERYTHING". There will be hand tools that are much cheaper and will do the same job, just with more labor on your part. By taking a course in a well equipped shop you will be a better judge of where your own priorities are, and where you may want to spend the big bucks and where you can afford to spend less because you will not use a particular tool all that often.

It should also be noted that tools needed vary in degree of how much you need them, and that is determined by the projects you do. Get what you need to do a specific project and build your tool inventory that way.

- If your local HS doesn't have a night class the instructor might know where you can go. Don't know where your located but there are really quite a few private ones around if you look. Fine Woodworking lists some as do the yellow pages. Might even try a local Vocational or technical school.