Welcome. I am a south-sider
Anyways to answer your question what is your goal with domaining... If you goal is to buy names and pay the renewals every year until your get an offer for mega bucks then buy 2 $500 names... If you goal is to develop one site and try to make a solid revenue producer put $500 into one name and $500 into development.
If you goal is to flip domains you buy for $8 and then sell for $20 and you have alot of time to do that then spend alot of time with drop lists...
Also what profession do you have? What hobbies do you have.
I work as a Network System Engineer during the day so my forte is tech names. I have done fairly well hand regging cutting edge technology and then devleoping parking or selling. Last year I bought a cutting edge tech name for $8 hand regged and sold it for over $3000 90 days later... I have also hand regged tech names that earn double their renewal fee in parking each year...
so the answer depends on you, your goals, your commitment, and your own ideas....
The biggest thing though is to get informed before you jump in. DONT spend your hard earned money until you have a game plan... with the economy the way it is expiring domains can be a good source right now as well...