I may be cheap/ I like to consider myself frugal. Never the less. I started off, for one month, with 0 depo. As many have said, I spent much time exploring, gathering tps, sweating, and doing the "free" mission chains. (i.e. fine the beer mission, and others)
Some of the missions can give you PED in ammo/weaps, or skill points. They also direct you to other places in the world. Meet nice people, and be nice. You would be surprised how many free rides you get. Does that make me a scrub, or a slut for accepting new rides, from strangers? Maybe, I could really care less. haha.
ANyhow, also, I was lucky, and participated in the "Old Fred" events. All I did was stand around, and get whacked a few times, died, rezed, rinse, repeat. My agility, went from 8- 24 in one event. My evade also went up. So always keep an eye open for when they do those.
Avoid using ANY armour. It is just a PED dump, until your evade, and combat skills go up a little. I never used armour, on punys, or most youngs. (Started on the matures/olds)
Make sure, that you only use wepaons that you are maxed with, or very close to max. Otherwise, you are agian, wasting precious PED.
It may sound weird, but to me, I play Entropia, like good vs Evil. But, the "Evil" is MA themselves. I try to take as much as I can, when I can from them, and give them back, the least possible that I can. Call me Scrooge Mcduck, but thats the most interesting part for me. How much, can I milk out of MindArk? hehe.