The character creation rules say that to buy Bonded Foci costs Karma. It doesn't say anything about the money. I understand if I wanted to buy more Foci after chargen, it would cost NuYen and Karma, but my thinking was that the foci at chargen were mine by various means.
Do I have to buy Foci at Chargen with money and karma?
Bonded Foci cost both Karma and Money at all steps in the game.
You have to buy the object in the "gear" step (p94, box) and to benefit from the magic effects, you have to pay the binding costs in the "spend leftover Karma" step (p98, table).
Take a close look at how exactly the verb bond is used in the table and the text on p. 98:
Text: bonding foci to be used at the start of the game
Table: Bond Foci
If this would include the monetary cost of Foci not just the cost to bond them, then would be in past participle, i.e.
Text: bonded foci to be used at the start of the game
Table: Bonded Foci
You still have to gain access to Foci to bond/use them and gaining access can only be done by purchasing them.
(And you can certainly not get access to a item with availability 32R and a cost of 144000 Nuyen by spending 48 Karma on a Power Focus.)
