I'm finding I can get by with surprisingly less light than I thought. Most of the images I'm considering are not in full sunlight but in shadow or indoors, and full sunlight can be worked with white diffusion fabric and reflectors. White diffusion material can be had pretty cheap at discount stores and fabric shops. I purchased some of my favorite material at Walmart for $1.00 a yard on clearance. Even just window light with or without a reflector can produce beautiful results. Continuos light is easy to model and work with and if you'd like to get something to start with try a Focusable Fresnel because it's much easier to soften a light than to harden one. With a fresnel you could point it at a ceiling corner or wall or through some white sheer fabric to soften it. Or point it through a window and use a reflector or use it straight on if you'd like. Tungsten can work well for B&W if you like the skin tones it produces, a daylight balanced light is good for color, and the greater the output of either will offer more options for using filters.
V cards, V shaped reflectors are really cheap and easy to make and are surprisingly useful. Some white diffusion material and a 1000 watt light and a few 500watt or 250 watt shop lights, a silver reflector, some cinefoil / blackwrap, tape and a-clips and you could have a lot of fun, especially on B&W. Thats basically what I'm doing and getting decent results, but my sharpest focusable light is only a 250 watt Lowel Pro light I picked up for $80.00 USD on ebay.
edit to add: And I always use a tripod.
