I think it depends on your purpose for building a guitar. Do you want to learn the art of guitar making or do you just want to have a guitar that you made? It is an important distinction.
A kit tends towards having a guitar that you made, though it can be a starting point for learning the art of guitar making. Kits come in different levels of done-ness, from a bunch of unworked materials, at one extreme, to only assembly and setup required, at the other extreme.
A lot of guitar making is similar to any other fine woodworking project. There are some aspects of guitar making that aren't typical of most other fine woodworking projects, including working with thin woods, which brings with it a variety of problems that need to be addressed, domed surfaces (tops and backs) bending sides, cutting fret slots, installing frets and setup. Only a handful of specialized tools are necessary. For example, if you already have a smoothing plane (#4 or #5, for example), you don't need a jack plane. Unless you buy them already thicknessed, you will need something to measure plate thicknesses, such as top, back and sides and a method for bending sides, unless you buy them pre-bent. As an avid woodworker, your probably have 90% or more of the tools you need - one can always add more, but most of them aren't necessary.
As Redir stated, you can spend pretty much whatever you want on materials. For a first instrument, I'd suggest mid-quality materials, rather than fancy, rare, figured or exotic materials. There are many nice woods from which to chose that won't cost hundreds - or thousands - of dollars.
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