Munson said:
why do none of you like budweiser?
I prefer the taste of Miller or Coors over Bud, but all that is is personal preference. Regardless of what anyone thinks about how a beer tastes. Home brewing requires initial startup costs plus costs of materials.
You can get a reasonably priced kit to start with for extract beers, and make some great beers doing it. The ingredients are what will get to you, extract is rather expensive, especially if you don't buy it bulk. For an extract recipe, WITHOUT buying in bulk, I'd doubt you could get a batch for under $30 (extract, any steeping grains, hops, and yeast). The most common size batch people make are 5 gallons (about two cases when bottled b/c some is lost through the process). So the cheapest you'll get the price of your homebrew is about $15 a case this way.
The other option is to use an all grain system (higher initial cost) but grain is much cheaper than extract.
If you get a 1/2 barrel (7 1/2 cases worth of beer) of Beast, Natty, or Keystone at $39 or $49 a pop, you're paying $5.20-$6.50 per case of beer. If you're really looking to only save money you and your buddies are better off getting a barrel every weekend, keeping it cold and going about it that way. We did that in college with a kegerator.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to discourage you from brewing, it's a lot of fun and you can make some fantastic beers, but you said that your goal was to save money b/c of the quantity of beer you drink on the weekends. Brewing your own most likely will not save you money and takes a fair amount of time dedication. I really hope that helps, I think someone also mentioned John Palmer's book online to read if you want to read up on more of the process and how to get started.
www.howtobrew.com