Dreamweaver or other design programs, and web hosting

I need to start a basic website for my non profit, and I simply don't think I can afford to hire anyone, so I will need to do it myself.

Even if I did hire, I would want to keep the software for myself.

Nothing fancy, but there will be photos. I anticipate about 8 seperate pages or so. I also need the ability to take credit/debit cards and paypal.

I am looking for any recommendations of software purchases, and also a reliable host. I can probably drop about 5 or 6 hundred initially, but not willing to go much higher because until I get tax exempt status, all costs come out of my pocket.

Also, I am domain ignorant. How do I get the name I want without it costing me an obscene amount of money?

Sorry for the noob questions

For someone like you, sir, CMSs are the way to go.

Basically, they are no-language-knowledge required way of webmastering. Also they are able and can look fancy if needed.

If the domain name you want is acquired by someone else already, you got a) backorder b) enquiry options

Backordering is letting a certain registrar to snap the domain name as soon as it expires and is not renewed whereas enquiry is simply asking the owner of the domain about how much would he/she/they want for the domain. As you could guess the latter could prove costly. Average domain name (.com, .org, .net) is sold for around 8-10$ a year by the by. Some domains (.info) tend to go cheaper from time to time while certain ones (.be, .co.uk, .tv etc.) would cost around 20-30$ annualy. Domains are registered on a year basis.

In the scattered light of these, my recommendation package would be:

1- Grab a domain name from Godaddy.com (check retailmenot.com for discount coupons available, if any, prior to the purchase) 10$
2- Get a basic domain hosting plan ("Hatchling" has Shared SSL which is required for e-commerce) from the reliable HostGator.com for 7.16$ recurring monthly or 66.72$ for a year with coupon-applied prices (fee goes down if you make sum up payments. Also check retailmenot here too)
3- From cPanel of your adminsitration panel, get Joomla! installed in seconds and start building up your website from the sample installation.
4- If you are looking into web design combined with the functionality that meets your demands, subscribe to Joomla Club of RocketTheme (they have themes designed for e-commerce) 50$ for 60 days / 75$ for 180 days. They give technical support in their forum too.

So 10 + 67 + 50 (or 75)= 127 (or 152)$ get you a running website. * I am not sure about what being able to process credit cards on your website costs you (I think it should).

Also I don't know if you are gfx capable or not but in case you will be making logos, gifs, icons for your website, you'd need an image editor. Other fellows would fill you in better if free stuff like GIMP is skillful in editing web graphics. If not, you'd have to go industry-standard like Adobe products are. But I doubt you'd have to end up so.

Hope that helps a bit.

Thanks for the info, LEN. Right now my greatest obstacle is a shortage of time

Might be worth your while to play with Drupal Gardens. Here's a primer. A little more granular than a lot of DIY GUI website makers, but still aimed at geeks without enough time.

Nice. The name is a little overbearing, but all the domains I wanted were taken, which meant I had to come up w/ a longer version anyway, so I guess it evens out. Looking at this one, thanks Lemur

If you have no web design experience and no time to learn it, definitely find a service that offers canned e-commerce sites. A nice one where you can change the text and pictures but have everything else pretty much done for you. I don't think you want want your first attempt to be their website- particularly not if there's financial transactions involved.