You can get your feet wet with genetic engineering for surprisingly little money.
This guy shows a lot of how it's done: https://www.youtube.com/@thethoughtemporium
Basically you can design/edit/inject custom genes into things and see real results spending on the scale of $100-$1000.
Is there something like this in text/readable format?
My main concern is using fungi. If it ends up in my lungs I'm most likely screwed, right?
We actually did this in my highschool genetics class back in 1999! We made bacteria change color by splicing in a gene. Awesome stuff.
The (public!) school had a grant from one of Seattle's biotech boom companies.