Overwhelming Juvy diet

I hate to say it, but I fantasized over owning a beardie and invested without fully understanding how much they can and will eat (only the viv and setup so far). Although I have enough money for the cost of food right now, being a college student, I don't have much flexibility and assurance over time.

I'm not too worried about when he becomes an adult (greens will be really easy), but the juvy diet just seems a bit overwhelming. The bearded dragon i'm looking to get is about 4-5 months old and I was thinking of switching between bulk orders of Reptiworms and 1k of small to medium crickets every 2 weeks to a month (each costing around 30-35 each w/shipping). This would eventually run me around $300+ on insects till adulthood; does this seem reasonable? I personally would like to avoid breeding dubia if possible, What would you recommend? I just want to make sure I'm as prepared as possible and ready before I take a beardie in, cause having to buy crickets at a pet store just seems like a waste of money, especially for juvys.

I would definitely go with bulk ordering crickets if you're not up for starting a dubia colony. 1000 used to last me about a month or so. I kept them in a 20g tank with mesh top (rubbermaid tote with a mesh screen over a top hole would work too). Having some alternate feeders to rotate in is a good idea as well. The ReptiWorms are a good choice as are silk worms. The amount of bugs they need after about 12-18 months decreases drastically as you mentioned but do be prepared to spend between $30-50 or so per month on food. You also want to factor in the costs of good lighting, possible vet care, and a properly sized enclosure. It's cheaper to get a larger enclosure together with proper lighting early on rather than starting small and replacing a small enclosure with a larger one. If there are plenty of hides and things to climb on, small dragons usually do well in large enclosures and at 4-5 months old he should be fine in an enclosure that is at least 4'x2'x2'.