If you want to save money on developer as well, take the time to do some calculations for whatever developers you are considering.
Ilford HC: The syrup is $40 per liter. This makes four liters of stock solution, so it ends up being $10 per liter of stock solution. At dilution H, stock solution gets diluted 1:15, so it takes 62.5 cents to make a liter of working solution. That is about 16 cents worth of developer for every roll of 35mm film. (At dilution B, which is more standard, 32 cents.) You also end up wasting very little, as the syrup is highly concentrated and keeps forever if you don't dilute it.
D-76 is $40 for the powder to make ten gallons of stock solution. If you dilute that 3:1 you have 40 gallons of one-shot working solution, making it one dollar per gallon and 25 cents per U.S. quart. This makes it about six cents per roll of 35. If you dilute the stock to a 1:1 one-shot, you spend twice as much, 12 cents per roll, which is still about one-third the cost of HC dilution B and still a little less than HC dilution H. If you were to use D-76 straight, reusing it with time adjustments after each batch, you can do ten rolls per quart, meaning 40 rolls per gallon, meaning 400 rolls per ten gallons, which makes it $40 worth of developer to process 400 rolls of film, or ten cents per roll. (Hardly worth losing the consistency of the 1:1 one shot method for only a two-cent savings per roll.)
In short, D-76 is the more economical developer, BUT ONLY IF you do not let it spoil. This means mixing up only as much as you will use to completion.
Might as well think of it this way since you are pinching pennies.
You can also bulk load your Ilford and not even have to switch! That will save you quite a lot of money. I highly favor Ilford to Agfa, personally. I would rather shoot half as much on a film I know and love than pay half as much for a film of which I am not particularly fond.
