How difficult is it to invent a new cryptocurrency? (In regards to time, money, technical knowledge, etc.) Although I initially believed there were only a couple cryptocurrencies available on the market, after some research, I've discovered that there are well over a thousand different cryptocurrencies!...even if a large percentage of these have extremely small market capitalizations. So my question is: What does it take to "create" a new cryptocurrency? More specifically, what degree of time, money, technical knowledge (and any other pertinent resources) is required? 

*I apologize but I should have also mentioned: Since I have limited technical experience, I would appreciate a non-technical "theoretical" answer.
quick approach:-

Not that difficult , Just fork a github repo of a smart contract supporting ERC20 token starndard and deploy the contract on main net. 

developer approach:-

If you want to make your own crypto currency the easiest way is to learn ethereum smart contract development , most crypto currencies present in market today are build over the top of etherum smart contract. If you have programming experience in javascript or similar languages it will be very easy to start with solidity language used to develop smart contracts.

Also learn about ERC20 token standard which is followed by crypto currencies build over top of ethereum
The ERC20 token standard describes the functions and events that an Ethereum token contract has to implement.