Hello again!
Recently I’ve been actively considering getting my Cisco Certification, and I was wondering what the wonderful people of the level1 forum would say regarding the matter.
Some clarification:
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Yes! I know that there is more than one CC, and more than one flavor on some levels. I intentionally left that vague to see what the forum’s thoughts were.
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My current level of networking knowledge is self rated at a 4/10, ten being expert. I’ve built multi subnet LANs with a homebrew pfSense router, partitioned chunks of one subnet for static ip use while using dhcp for the entire other subnet, etc. all ipv4, and all achieved by beating my proverbial head into the keyboard for long enough that it actually works. I took a CCENT practice exam and got 22/55 correct by more or less slightly educated blind guessing, hence 4/10.
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I have no experience whatsoever with Cisco IOS, and was also wondering what form of lab setup I should use. I can spend money, but I don’t want to remortgage the family farm. 
Which is to say I’m not afraid to buy physical hardware. Actually I’d like to go that route, just to have it around. 
At any rate, thanks in advance!
My point of view, I have a ccent 1 and a CCDA, due to work reasons. In hindsight I think that with CCNP in R&S, CCDA would have been way easier.
as for q´s
1.
You will always have use for everything in Routing and Switching if you want to work with networks.
General recommendation is that you do ccent 1 then 2 for a CCNA, then go CCNP R&S. After that you can branch out. but the R&S is never “wasted” as it is the foundation.
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For test preparation material I suggest boson.com and their test engine. They make it harder than the real test and the simlets are good. If you answer wrong you get a good explanation to why, they have a test engine with a few questions that you can try. I used that for my ccent 1 and will use it for my ccent 2.
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You want hardware? e-bay is your friend, loads of routers and switches available, and quite cheap. for starting out: 1842 routers, these are desktop-models and fairly quiet, word of warning thou is that they have some that can die due to some chipfault, so if they run dont reboot 
I have 3 + 1 or 2 dead, they take some different modules, like serial and ADSL and switchports.
A 2950 switch can do most of the things you would like to try, and cheap, maybe get 2 or more for STP.
And if you do buy hardware, make shure it’s Gigabit, so that if you would like to use it at home to expand your network you wont get stuck with any bottlenecks.
You want to simulate?
GNS3 is your friend. loads of walktru’s on youtube, but as some will mention, it cant do full simulation of everything a switch can.
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If you want a lightweight simulator, try Cisco Packet Tracer, you can set up virtual networks, learn IOS command line and all that. It’s not as in depth as GNS3, but it’s a great start point. I’m currently using it
Get what the job requires.
CCNAs are Network Admin I positions. Entry level.
You do a hell of a lot of port security resets and are the network gofer when a switch goes down, most of your job is figuring out who to call to replace a UPS. Also dealing with people.
There is a CCNA ISP Certification. Do you like ATM, Frame Relay, DSL, and Docsis casue that’s what you’re going to do with Associate level. Telling people to reset their home ISP router. This is the cert you get if the only network job in your area is the soul-less ISP.
If you’re ex military and kept your ‘history’ clean you could always go for DoD networking, they hire anyone with a pulse and the right certs. Starting with CCNA Route and Switch and a Security + … Not a bad salary, usually.
For studying get gud at subnetting. That’s half of the CCNA. Then study the other half which is router protocols that you will never get to use at your job until much later. but mostly get a sense of ip routing. There’s another half (150% lolz) of layer 2 protocols like vtp, dot1q, mac tables, this is one Area (old info) Packet Tracer was weak on as it didn’t emulate all the way to port asics. (too much info)
Another vote for Packet Tracer. Most of the official cisco courses come with student access to Packet Tracer. All of the function of CCNA will be covered by Packet Tracer. Boson is just bloody expensive. And GNS3 has too steep of a learning curve and has some unmentionable copyright violations required unless you want to license expensive ios from cisco.
some common tasks given to decent CCNA R&S holders.
Configure ip / trunk / svi
configure portchannel and ether channel
Configure vtp client. (do not screw this up)
configure ntp client
configure aaa and tacacs settings
configure snmp client settings to point to your monitor software.
configure Access control Lists. (more like copy a template from notepad)
configure logging (point to server)
assign ports to vlans.
Very little dynamic routing.
That’s a typical day for CCNA R&S.
IF your rural consider satellite communications, basically dish pointers, but they usually pay for network certs and have some training reimbursement. A rare job is fiber optic repair. The 3M certified guys get pretty good. And they usually want some network certification as well.