Do you use stock icons/illustrations or create a budget for brand new ones when you start a project?

For icons, I prefer going with flaticon. However for illustrations I prefer creating a new one explaining some of the important product stories.

I recently started creating my own icons while sometimes downloading from the list of free icons .. while being bootstrapped we are always tight on budget

I go the route of using stock icons. If I had the skills to design quality icons myself I'd do so, if it was a valuable use of my time.

Stock to start, here are our go-tos: https://www.flaticon.com/ https://ui8.net/ https://creativemarket.com/

Early on, we used Fiverr artists for some graphics but mostly turned to stick icons/illustrations. We now budget for custom icons and illustrations that are on brand and unique to us. Best decision we ever made.