OK, I live on a rather small budget and I can tell you from experience, that you can grow on a budget! You do not need to get a HPS and all that jazz right off the bat! Go with soil and fluoros!

I started out with a single shop light with cool white tubes (on sale- $10). Kept the seedlings about one inch from the tube. Had to raise it ever day or two, which was a pain, but the plants grew quite well. I then had the hubby make a frame and mounted the light and added another shop light when I got my paycheck. CFLs also work quite well, but are a tad hotter and can burn your plants if they are too close. With the tube type of fluoros, the leaf has to actually touch the tube to be damaged. .

Eventually, I had 5 shop lights (10 tubes at 40 watts x 10 lights = 400 watts) and some CFLs (4 at 26 watts each = 104 watts) over my plants. I switched from cool white tubes (good for vegging) to GE's "Bath and Kitchen" tubes, since they were warm colored (better for budding). My plants budded up and I got enough pot to last me through the next harvest (and I toke daily as a MMJ user, as does the hubby).

My whole set-up cost less than $100 and I did it one shop light at a time. My pots were- paper drink cups to 1 gallon pots (left over from other gardening) and then to 5 gallon pots (50 cents at the local market) and a couple of 5 gallon pails (scavenged). I grew in some good garden soil cut with some Walmart potting soil and vermiculite (less than $15, total). Some cheap-o steer manure and some epsom salts were my ferts (about a buck each).

Put your babies on the window sill, by all means! Natural sunlight is better for them than even a HPS! Plants have grown for millions of years under the sun and have evolved to use its spectrum of light (which we try to fake with our lights).

You just hang in there and get some fluoros- they will work just fine! And remember, cannabis is a weed- it's tough and given half a chance, it will live!- Granny:hippy: