The reason to start there is not frugality. It is that editing software is a skill rather than a purchase, and the gap between owning a capable program and being able to use it is measured in weeks. A business that buys professional software before producing anything typically produces nothing, because the first project now includes learning an interface designed for people who do this daily. Starting with something simple means the first video exists, and the limitations you eventually hit will tell you specifically what to buy.
The category worth knowing about is transcript based editing, where the software transcribes your recording and lets you cut it by deleting words from the text. For talking head content, interviews, and anything unscripted, this is dramatically faster than working on a timeline and requires no editing knowledge at all. If most of what you produce is somebody speaking to camera, this is probably the right tool rather than a conventional editor.
Where you will feel a real limitation is in specific places rather than generally. Multiple camera angles synchronised together, colour work, layered graphics, and precise audio repair are where free and simple tools stop, and if your content needs those you will know because you will be fighting the software rather than using it. That is the signal to upgrade, and it is a much better signal than a feature comparison read before you started.
One practical warning regardless of what you choose. Check what watermark or export restrictions apply on any free tier before you build a workflow around it, because discovering that your finished video carries somebody else's branding, or is limited to a resolution you cannot use, is a discovery best made before the edit rather than after.
Whatever you choose, establish where the finished files and the source footage live before you accumulate a year of both. Video consumes storage quickly, and the common outcome is source material scattered across a phone, a laptop, and an external drive with no reliable way to find the original of something you want to re edit. One folder structure decided early prevents an archive nobody can navigate later.