[tuatoru]

The most important piece of equipment to improve is between your ears.

Take lots and lots of photos with your phone. Get a gorillapod tripod for it. Get down on your knees - people mostly look best when the camera is at chest height. Kids look best from the floor. A lot of other things look better from these angles, too.

Look at your photos a lot. And them some more.

Start to see your preferences--the kinds of photos you like taking, and things in your photos that you want to fix. Youtube is a fantastic resource if you want to get better.

After six months or a year of this, you'll have an idea of what you want out of lenses (and therefore a camera).

Buying a camera before doing this is wasting money -- but hey, it keeps the manufacturers in business. :-)