soldering iron, solder, and solder sucker don't take much space. But start with bread boards, and wire strippers/cutter and a multi meter, then add in a scope

soldering iron, solder, and solder sucker don't take much space. But start with bread boards, and wire strippers/cutter and a multi meter, then add in a scope. You can do most everything in the same space a keyboard / mouse take up on a desk. Get creative with finding plastic containers to store parts, and then just put them all in a small suit case. If you get the electronics bug, you'll naturally work out how to grow your area. I mostly just stick with a small kit of stuff for random things using dev boards mostly. Once you get confident, you can get boards made for cheap, then solder it together yourself, but you can get a lot of it done for you, which you will want with surface mount components.