To expand a little, Brian and Dan are suggesting you spend a little to buy a manual 35 mm camera if you don't have one (these can be had for under $50 -- a Kodak Pony 135 is a very good choice for this, but others in the same class are as good). You'll save the cost of the camera on film (compared to 9x12 at above a dollar a frame) by the time you really internalize the exposure triangle (aperture, shutter speed, ISO speed), how reciprocity works (f/11, 1/250 is the same as f/16, 1/125), and learn your way around developing (very strongly recommended for black and white -- it doesn't take much practice or equipment to do as good a job as a mail-out lab, and you'll save tens of dollars per roll; you can scan with a smart phone and a cardboard film carrier you can make yourself).
FWIW, I very often don't use a light meter -- but I've been using manual cameras in formats from 16 mm up to 4x5 over the past fifty years. When I started shooting adjustable cameras in 1972, with a newly acquired Pony 135, I metered every exposure with a newly acquired Gossen Sixtomat (which continued to work for me until I dropped it one time too many around 2005). Even after learning the Sunny 16 method (even today!), I still meter anything that isn't just a scene with an ordinary brightness range.