Being on a tight budget doesn't limit you as much as many people think

Sounds like you should use Freewebs:
http://www.freewebs.com/Freewebs is a very popular, free, and easy way to make your own website.
As for advice, I would advise you to have good navigation through your website. Try to think as if you're a newcomer to your own website and you don't know where to start. So have a good homepage explaining what the site is about and stuff like that. Also check out other people's websites, especially other's hosted by freewebs, to see how you want to display the information that you have to present.
Making websites is really fun and I hope you enjoy it! I really want to see the results once you're finished
