Times get tougher every month in this industry. Competition is unreal. I've been around for over ten years myself and have seen a lot as have many here. What the others say about not just jumping in to do paysites is very good advice. Even if you start low budget you can easily make mistakes which will either tarnish your name in the industry, get you sued, or flat out cost you more money than you make.
If I were you i would wait a good six months and read the boards daily. Start up some sites of your own such as freesites, blogs, etc just to get a feel for things and how it all works.
Good lower budget solutions for getting in to the paysite/affiliate game are:
http://www.ccbill.com (Best in regards to 3rd party processing and affiliate program tools)
and
http://www.verotel.com
If I were you I would not even think about my own merchant account at this point!