ARGH. Getting used to wordpress - do I have to pay for EVERYTHING?

[SenseofEntitlement]

So, I'm using wordpress.com for this new blog and it is getting very frustrating very quickly. A lot of things I want to do seem to need me to have my own hosting (install widgets, put stuff in the HTML for google apps, add tag thingies for search engines, etc) but that is more expense. I've already bought a domain name and was shocked to discover I still have to pay wordpress to use my own domain, so I did that too.
Meh. It does seem to be loads better than blogspot, especially as I want multiple users and hope to go on to get quite advanced, but I'm getting a bit overwhelmed now.
Is there something I should be doing now to lay good foundations, or can I just go at it and change stuff later?

I use wordpress and I haven't paid for any extras at all. But then I'm a cheapskate. I spent a long time watching widget tutorials on youtube to find out how to do things for nowt, also bought Blogging for Dummies.

My blog is quite rubbish looking though!

I moved from Blogger to Wordpress a while ago, and I really like it - IMHO it is a better platform, but Blogger have the edge sometimes because so many things are owned by Google, and are much easier to put on their blogs.

Wordpress have loads of good widgets too though (Appearances > Widgets), and there are quite often work-arounds. Apparently some themes work better with widgets than others.

What was it that you wanted to do?

I've just paid to use my own domain name and for the custom css so I can pretty it up. I'm going to pay to have adverts removed as well at some point as well.

I haven't bothered self hosting and tbh haven't missed it.

I am an avid Wordpress user - I run some blogs/websites for other people too - and hardly pay for anything except the occasional custom URL and then having the blog I want mapped to it. But I'm using exclusively wordpress.com rather than wordpress.org - the latter being more powerful but much more costly. Which are you using?

Wordpress is much more of a content management system than a blog hosting website. If you want to throw up a blog, not pay anything, and post occasionally then Blogger is the better option for you. If you have your own domain and hosting package with a hosting company and know what you're doing, then WP doesn't cost you a dime as it's merely a means of managing your content that you host on a server.

That's WP.org, Navie42, not Wordpress.com, which is a blog hosting website. I love it - way better than Blogger IMO, and I don't get so frustrated commenting on WP blogs than I do on Blogger blogs!

SOE - not sure what it is you want, exactly, but the only thing I've paid for is my domain name - the rest has been completely free.