Do not underestimate the power of this forum and live events when it comes to finding cheap parts or interesting sales. You may also find people willing to help you out.

An example (If I may...):
Our living room is getting a reputation in Belgium/the Netherlands. We simply invite roboteers to come and use our tools/machines that have set up shop in what used to be the living room of the house. The roboteers usually stay for the weekend and we have lots of fun. Mario is good at finding affordable materials and we have some reasonable suppliers in the neighbourhood (one paintball-shop recently opened just 3 streets from here and they have the right kind of bottles ! That alone saves us a 3-hour trip to our old supplier).

Whether to stay in the game and risk getting your robot damaged beyond repair or finances, it is still your decision. But please understand that there are many many more people in the same situation as you. The reason why people have not seen us on live events the past year is because we simply didnt have the money to come over. Or even a working robot... Many roboteers are scraping together what they can, most of them are students, notoriously short on money anyway. And just like safety comes in numbers you could be lucky to team up with other people and pool your resources.

What it comes down to is this: do you go for the fun, the challenge and the exitement, or do you go for the competition, or do you see it purely in financial matters ? Can you afford it now or should you wait until your situation has improved instead of quitting altogether ?