The biggest hurdle to processing a dear is forcing yourself to jump in and do it. The above posts gave lots of quality information. A good knife (or 2), a good sharpener, and a way to package are all you need to start. Yes, grinders, slicers, vacuum packagers, saws etc are all nice, but can be a bit overwhelming when you're starting. They will all come in time, trust us, you will become hooked.

The first deer to me 8, yes 8, hours to fully process. My wife thought I was nuts when she came out to check on me in the middle of the night as I was still working away. Many years later I'm at the 1.5 hour point for skinning and deboning (grinding not included) and the times are still decreasing. For me its actually part of the entire hunting process. You take the time to obtain land, scout, track, ethically harvest, field dress as best you can, etc. then you might as well finish the job yourself too. Not to sound like a tree hugger but there is a bit of honor involved. Some of the guys I hunt with don't process themselves and even though they are older "seasoned" hunters they know very little about the meat. Next year I'm actually planning on taking at least half of their tenderloins. They refuse to take it out immediately yet they wonder why they get very little meat from that cut (maybe because over half of it is dried up into a crispy chip).