My advice to accumulate bitcoin as a newbie would be to spend time researching and participating in forums etc and you will accumulate satoshis at the same time that you accumulate experience and knowledge. If you spend time learning you'll earn bitcoin one way or the other.
Thats also another options learn well and get your rank high and join signature. Theres no other way to get bitcoin without investment here aside from signature or join some raffle or free giveaway bitcoin here. But OPs talking about probably the investment part since he is asking if his gonna wait to go down. So my response is about dca instead.
No there are other options to earn bitcoin without spending any amount. And that are joining some free airdrops although this is not 100% sure that you can earn but at least you have a chance to gain for free if there is a legitimate platform will pay to its early bird users. Also there are jobs on this forum which pays btc so maybe he can hunt for a job for start if he want to accumulate bitcoins and use this for other investment which can generate us another profits.