Can you guys help me become more tech savvy?

Lord Google, he is your friend.

Reading is good, but hands on is much better though not always practical. I'd narrow your scope and learn one thing at a time, and you'll find that learning the first thing makes learning the second thing a little easier, and so on. How would you describe your skill/knowledge level now? What kind of devices do you currently own? Also, what is your biggest interest (would be the best starting point)? Mobile devices (phones tablets), full-featured PCs (laptops, desktops of all brands), networking (routers, repeaters/APs, etc), home theater, etc.?

Between all of the tech minds here, we can probably answer any questions you might have, which would be a start.

EDIT: As said above, narrowing it down to a specific project would be even better. For me, my hardware knowledge started 11 years ago with the simple desire to build a PC to use for schoolwork and general web surfing.

+1 for the "pick a project" idea.

If you want to stay "free" for now and have at least one computer and one more computer/tablet/smart phone, challenge yourself to make your audio available to yourself over a network. It's simple. There's actually even one quick answer: Plex. But Plex isn't the best. So go google "Media Servers" and read about the pros and cons of the free vs paid options. Then try to make one work. Tinkering is where the fun and learning are.

If that's not appealing, and you have two Windows machines with Win Pro, try setting up a remote desktop connection that's available out of your network.

If you want to spend a few bucks, building an HTPC is a fantastic option. I'd recommend installing something like VMWare vSphere and installing multiple OS on it to tinker with.

There's lots of ways to learn. Most of them are by doing. At the very least, read tons of product comparisons just to learn what's possible.

To gain general knowledge about what's going on in technology a blog is a good place to start. I read Gizmodo most days to read news and reviews.

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Start by limiting your processors to FM2+ and LGA1150 (the two most current sockets).

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For a gaming PC in particular, socket AM3+ will offer better bang for buck vs. FM2+ APUs. It's old and the chipset is a bit dated, but it's still the best budget option for CPUs between the Pentium G3258 and the latest flavor of the month i5.

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Most of what you'll be doing is reading about what you need and why you need it (how much power? How many USB ports? How many expansion slots and what kind? What's the difference between ATX and mATX? What's a chipset?)

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My guide covers topics like that and makes PCPartPicker a little less daunting to use.

There's another tool... that I am reluctant to suggest because it's essentially a cheatsheet that doesn't teach you anything... it's called the ChooseMyPC build generator. You give it a few very basic parameters such as budget, and it spits out a list of parts for a serviceable gaming PC based on PCPartPicker data. LINK

It's easy and actually generates a fairly optimized part list, but the pitfalls, other than you not learning anything, is that it doesn't intelligently sort through brand-specific features or best bang for buck in individual components. For example, it'll choose the cheapest 8GB RAM kit listed because brand doesn't matter, but it won't account for the fact that for 5% more money there's a kit that runs 25% faster. It'll grab the cheapest bargain bin SSD without realizing that another dollar would get you an on-sale Crucial with twice the random read/write speed. It'll suggest a lower tier AIB brand video card with a shitty reference cooler instead of noticing the factory-overclocked version with an aftermarket cooler for another few bucks... And so on... it may have improved since its infancy, but I'd consider it more of a jumping off point than gospel.

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Wow that forum really takes me back. First PC forum I ever joined. Made some IRL friends there, and it was my first and primary source for water cooling information when I was just starting out. I've been a member there for a decade, but it's not very active anymore, and I'm pretty sure Jason (admin) has basically abandoned it.

Overclock.net is pretty much where everyone migrated as it's one of the most active forums, but there's a larger mix of smart, dumb, and lots of in between.