Go for it. Mercury retrograde is coming up anyway, so might as well break some old rules.
I bought my first deck during a Venus-Jupiter conjunction. If I’d waited for someone to gift me one, I’d probably still be waiting. The whole ‘you can’t buy your own’ thing is just superstition anyway.
Definitely get your own deck! Looking through all the different options and seeing which one catches your eye is half the fun. Picking your first deck is a nice experience, you get to see all the different artwork and find one that you actually like.
Just a heads up though, once you start looking it’s hard to stop at just one. The tarot community calls it ‘deck addiction’ for a reason. But yeah, choosing your own deck feels better than having someone else pick it for you.
Most readers just buy their own decks. Some get them as gifts. There’s no rule that says you have to be gifted one. Whoever repeated that to you is not going to give you useful Tarot advice.
Pick a deck you actually like and feel drawn to. You’re more likely to use it, learn it, and read better with it than if you’re stuck with something random from a relative. If a deck catches your eye, buy it. It won’t curse you or burst into flames because you paid for it.
I used to write off mystical stuff. Picking a deck that actually clicks for me - traditional art or not - works better than waiting for someone else to guess what fits my kind of skepticism.
Those ‘wait until someone gifts you a deck’ rules just keep people from getting started.
If you feel a pull toward a deck, buy it and see how it reads for you. No need to wait for a gift because of an old superstition.