Dabbling In Mining

Hey Miners,
I have been messing around with Mining. I have gone through Mining blogs and googled Mining rigs.
My God they are expensive.
Seems to me to make a little bit of a profit, I need to spend 4k on a rig.

I've enjoyed doing some mining on my potatoes computer, joining different pools, trying out different Miners, mining electroneum as well as monero.

This whole technology impresses me. I've probably talked my father into going halves to buy a rig. This post isn't pretty or long. But there seems to be many well educated Miners on here.

I would like some thoughts on rigs and hardware.
What do you prefer?

6gpus, 8gpus?
Is mining with gpus really more profitable than could mining?

Point me in a good direction.