You can survive on freebies in digital scrapbooking for a long time. Kits are generally around 3-5 each, if you can catch them on sale. If you are familiar with a site, you will quickly figure out their sale pattern. I am on many digital creative teams, so I rarely buy kits, but I do occasionally.
Then when I have my pages done, I print them in shutterfly books, which are 30 for 20 pages, more for additional pages.
And of course you need a program to create in!