I have had CC for many moons and have all the power-ups. You can have a fine time with just the base package, especially now that you can use .png files as symbols within the program.

Have a look at the Annual add-ons, as you can find map styles, fonts, and symbols all packaged up for easy use. And you buy them by individual year, so for $20 or so you get about 12 different styles. If you find one in particular you like, that can be a cheaper way to fill in some more tools and objects to use.