A few things I don't think I've seen asked is what kind of music are you planning to play? What basses do you like the sound of when you hear them?
I've haven't been playing that much longer than you, so I'll share my journey on the (admittedly) off chance it helps you at all. I wanted something versatile to start with (because I was ignorant and figured the more different sounds I could get, the better off I'd be) so a bass player I knew told me to get an Ibanez SR500 ($600). He said it would cover just about anything but the sound of a p bass (of course I had no idea of the significance of that remark).
Now, don't get me wrong, the SR was a great bass for me to learn on, nice thin neck for my stubby little fingers, light weight for my old shoulder, and some really nice sounds. I was happy - until I got a teacher who happened to play a hot-rodded 70's p bass - OMG, the tone!! So I went out and found a used MIM p bass for $300. I got lucky, a set of LaBella flats (and the mandatory tort guard- the original was white and strangely faded in spots) and the thing has great tone, even by my teacher's standards. Then my teacher said I needed to have a 5 string.
By now I'm feeling like I've got an awful lot of $$ tied up in bass stuff (don't forget the amp, Tascam bass trainer, stands, straps, etc.) so I find the cheapest 5 string with acceptable quality, feel and sound, and end up with an Ibanez SR 605 ($400)- another "nice" bass. This time, though I had spent some days trying different basses and started to get an idea of the different sounds and feel of different basses. Learned things like I loved the sound of a Thunderbird Classic (Epiphone, of course), but hated the feel.
I also learned from listening to music and then looking up who was playing what on that song, that I really liked the sound of Music Man style pick-ups, so I started shopping again. I found a decent price on a Warwick $$ that I was supposed to buy from the owner, but he decided to sell it to GC for $200 less than I would have given him for it. Thank God for that because I didn't really care for it and returned it. But wait, there's more!
Got a good deal on a Carvin LB70 ($550) on Craig's list, and like Hounddog said, it is one sweet bass! Has the big MM-style humbucker at the bridge and everything. Doesn't really like flats that much, but what beautiful tones it makes! Not to mention great build quality and looks (Anniversay Edition). Much as I liked it, I kept finding myself going back to my p bass, especially for performances (I play at church). And, more and more often I kept finding the basses whose sound made me look them up were Music Mans. When I finally got to play one, I was in love!
$1250 later I am the proud owner of a used SR 5 HH. For those who haven't kept score, that's 5 basses at a cost of $3100. I know that's not really that bad, but I don't need or want 5 basses, so I'll be selling the 2 Ibanez's and the p bass, I'm sure at a good loss on each. I'm guessing that it'll end up costing me $2300 for the $1800 worth of basses I'm keeping. Now, I'm ending up with some pretty sweet basses for that price, but the $500 I'm losing sure would have made a huge upgrade to my $200 amp!
TLDR- So, figure out what sound you like and what kind of neck/bass feels good to you before you buy anything else and you can end up with the right bass(es) for you and save yourself lots of money. Sorry for the book y'all!
Short of a broken, non performing instrument... non of us "need" more than one bass, but several of us here 5, 7, or more basses, so at some point we all had to ask ourselves the same question lol 
