Woodworking is a pretty wide term, so it's useful to mention this guide is only good if you're planning on building cabinetry and furniture. If you want to carve a spoon, this likely won't help you. I'll also try to keep it to tools you absolutely need and marking optional ideas with 💡. If you want to get into how to use them, youtube is great at that.
Wood basics
Wood is what you get when you take a tree and cut it up into planks and posts. Depending on the tree species, it can be soft (softwood), or hard (hardwood). Plywood is when you take thin sheets of wood and glue them together into large 4' by 8' layered panels. To begin with, we'll be working with plywood. There's other types of wood products, most notably MDF (medium density fiberboard - very densely packed panel) and particleboard (very lightly packed panel).
Work surface
No matter what your project is, you're going to have to put it down on something. I highly recommend building your own workbench fairly soon into your woodworking journey - it's a great exercise. But for the beginning, you'll do good with a set of sawhorses with any panel over them.
Measuring things
When it comes to measuring things in woodworking, two things are important. One is that you cut your panels to the accurate size, and two — more important — that your panels are square to each other. Even a 90.5º angle can throw a big wrench into your entire project.
Holding things down
Before we get into cutting, we need to make sure our wood doesn't move as we're cutting it. A good rule of woodworking is that you always need all the clamps you have + a couple more.
Cutting things
Now for the messy fun part! This is also the first time in the list where quality is going to start to matter a bit more. As a first purchase I definitely recommend a circular saw. It's the most versatile cutting tool, and in the beginning, it can do most of the jobs of table saw, track saw and miter saw reasonably well. I also recommend getting a basic hand saw.
Sidenote about other brands
Joining and assembling things
You'd be surprised how far you can get by just screwing things together with basic wood screws. I'd definitely recommend at least a couple simple shop projects with screws. The next step up is pocket hole screws (for when you get tired of screws being visible). Oh, and you'll definitely need wood glue.
Finishing things
There are so many different finishes you can apply to wood, with so many different effects that there's even a really good book about it. I'll recommend picking one finish to start with and you can take it from there.
I hope this helped you get set up with some basic tools for cabinetry. All in all, the total comes down to less than $600, and you can definitely make a more than decent night stand or coffee table with these. Here are some other shop basics that are not necessarily related to woodworking but are pretty essential:
- Protective gear - good face mask, glasses, ear protection.
- Good set of drills - get one for drilling and one for driver for screws + basic drill bit collection
- Shop vac - get a wet/dry one. They're loud but awesome.