you'll only cheat yourself if you go cheap. CFLs don't flower any good unless you buy twenty of them, and by that time, you might have well of bought a nice hps. just saying. lights are the LAST place you want to cut costs. everything else can be ghetto as fuck, but at least get a decent 100-400 watt hps light/ballast package. it's like a hundred bucks... wtf. i don't know what the street value is on the product you'll be growing, but you could more than cover the investment in 4months.