I know they likely cost a bit more, but I'd go with at least one clear PET carboy to begin with. Why? It's really interesting when you first start out in this hobby to be able to watch the fermentation process in action. When I started, I would check in on the carboy at least once a day just to see what was happening. This also gives you clues as to what stage of the fermentation process you are at (early krausening, brown head, high krausen, krausen starts to drop, yeast starts to drop out, etc). You'll also start to notice that different yeast strains have different looking krausen and flocculate differently (or don't) as fermentation winds down.
If you go the bucket route, you have less opportunity to watch your wort turn into beer. Cracking the lid and peering in is not the same as seeing yeast dance all over the place inside the carboy. Just my two cents. I use both, but still find it more fun to watch fermentation in a carboy.