Comic books were a dime each when I was a kid. My parents hated them as well but I had a pretty large collection hidden in my room. Which my mother eventually found and threw out.
That would still require money - something my parents didn't give me until I was 16 lol. I had a pretty strict childhood all things considered.
I've seen all the X-Men films and in the early 90s watched the animated show, which I greatly enjoyed. Plus they are available as eBooks and I have an iPad. So I probably will start at some point. Maybe. I like the idea of you buying the comic books in secret and hiding them in your room. That sounds fantastic!
Start with the 1975 X-Men not the 1963. Here is Marvel doing a documentary of 4 YouTube videos explaining the “seminal moments” of the X-Men.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iY3H43y5aKk
You read 60s X-Men for the time capsule nature of 60s comics, and it is not the best representative of this period. The X-Men started being the X-Men we know in 1975 where they relaunched the X-Men with a new team (rescuing the old team) in Giant Size #1, (X-Men was canceled from 1970 to 1975.)
This has the added benefit of reading the Chris Claremont era, the head writer for the X-Men from ‘75 to ‘91. (He did not do Giant Size X-Men#1 but he went from intern to writer to head writer in a few months of ‘75.)