Well that sucks. How much does materials cost for you?

Expensive lol
It's like $25 a yard of fur and anywhere between $15 and $50 for foam.
And you can't buy less than a yard usually for fur so it's pretty much $25 for every color on a suit.
There are also little things like cost of glue sticks and thread.

Set your prices to build the suit and ask for half up front to start the commission. That should give you enough to build the suit I would think.

This! You should be able to get half down at least.... or offer a discount if they pay in full upfront?

The issue is I'm not doing commissions yet. I don't want to screw myself over by trying to take commissions and then not be able to do them. So I plan to make AT LEAST five premades before I even think about taking commissions.

Do not fret one day the volt will make one of our puppets maybe even Rixis ^_o patients young one

Saving for materials was seriously the /most difficult/ thing. Especially shipping cost, you could almost double your entire budget. x __ x
When I started I had saved my birthday money, Christmas money and took on a ton of high quality art commissions and gathered enough money to make small things like tails and feet paws and sold those and doubled profit that way until I was making partials. Once I got to things that big I had all the basic materials I needed to make a partial from slowly building up. (I also bought wholesale "rolls" of things like elastic, nylon and stuff. Im still using the same rolls and saved a bunch of money investing in bulk.)

If you need any tips feel free to HMU, Im usually pretty ADD and busy most of the time since my queue is full but Id like to help out if I can.