Most everyone finds a kit the easiest and most painfree way to go. If you have a local shop they can set you up. If not you can always order online and get it delivered. Don't go crazy, you don't need much to get started. Trust me once you get hooked, and you will, you will go on a buying frenzy and before you know it have all kinds of equipment. But all you need to get started is a plastic fermenter/bottling bucket with lid, a plastic spoon for stirring, an airlock, bottling wand, bottles, caps, capper if needed, sanitizer and your first beer kit. I started off with "no-boil" kits, they use liquid malt extract and are super simple to brew. While the beers produced are not as complex and flavorful as other types the no boil kits produce a remarkably good beer with minimal effort. Then as you want to move on to boil kits you can start adding to your basic kit. My first addition was a 5gal glass carboy and auto-syphon so that after one week in the bucket I could move the beer to the carboy for two weeks of secondary fermentation. Even the no-boil kits showed improvement from the added conditioning before bottling. So far I have done the no-boil, some 20 minute boil and full boil type kits. Soon I plan on moving to all grain, but all the kits have made great beer. Just be patient and let it age (bottle condition) longer than the kits say.