Something a lot of people don't think about is that chickens are an investment. Don't expect them to give you "free" eggs the first year, or even the second. This is also true of gardens, orchards, dairy goats, and any meat animals. If you want to make your own food, you MUST spend money to start up. Our garden and orchard are now producing "free" food, but we've been acquiring equipment for 30 years. Neither were paying for themselves right off the bat.
I attempted the recycled supplies route and got garbage (And oak! Good lord, that stuff was heavy, and completely useless for what I was doing. I traded it for some tarps, which WERE useful.). If I'd been in a position to tear down a barn of my own or something it would have been different, so take that route if you can, but ignore the jeers of the professional scroungers and the extremely lucky finders if you can't.
My projection is that I'll be down under store prices next year for consumable costs (feed, oyster, medications of any sort, bedding), and within three years for all costs (coop/run + consumables). Both of those could change due to feed prices going up (though that usually affects store egg prices as well).
I don't begrudge my chickens the cost of their coop. I enjoy them, I enjoy the eggs. I'm even enjoying trying to ferret out problems I have with them. I would enjoy them a lot less if I'd cheaped up on my coop design and lost them to predators.
Though I do think we (all of us here) should take the responsibility to realistically portray the expense to the newbies.