I think something that I am going to do from now on is find wood from torn down houses and use as much of that as I can for body wood. I mean, hey I love the look of nice, high grade wood. But if say maple from an old house thats been torn down is laying around somewhere headed to be made into woodchips or something, it might be good to ask the people removing it if you can have the piece.
But to really address what Rich was saying here, yeah the wood prices are pretty high. It hurts for someone to be learning nowadays because if you make a huge mistake and trash the body or neck, you just basically burned your own money. I bought a large plank of redwood maybe 2 1/8 thick, only cost me $35 on eBay. Now, eBay is NOT the best or even really a great source of wood, yet if I can find it for cheap, I'll take the risk. For the most part, I've received good wood for my money. The alder I'm using on my guitar now cost around $30 dollars, and its a nice solid one piece of alder. Good color, good grain, no problems. It sucks to see a lot of the big manufacturers or parts supply websites or stores selling alder blanks for $80!!! I can't afford that! It's really just not a buyer's market for us humble guitar builders.