You need materials, you need equipment, you need a laboratory, you likely need research associates to help you on site, if you are working with animals you need to house them, feed them and acquire them in the first place, all of which costs money, and that is after you pay for living expenses. Without any outside funding that is large enough to pay for both living expenses and research, you can only do research in your spare time after your dayjob, slowing you down massively, the low budget limits you to low tier materials and equipment, and not having helpers on site and only on the web with time delayed communication slows you down even more. At the very least, it makes you completely uncompetitive against publicly or corporate funded researchers, because they will be faster than you, and because they have access to specialised and expensive equipment, they can venture into fields that you never will.