I am on a very tight budget this pay period, and my options are to brew cheap, or not brew at all.
saison!!!!!!!
belle saison dry yeast is cheap. realistically one pack is fine for 5 gal. even better if you can get some lacto into the mix for a tart saison.
and the style is amenable to just throwing whatever you have on hand into the grain bill. two row, pils, medium to lighter crystals, vienna, munich, all the cara's, wheat, corn, rice are fine. even oats would probly be ok- a little weird, but ok. light/pale saison, amber/red/dark saison- why not? about the only thing i'd avoid is roasted malt. (although i did have a nearly black sour once that was interesting.....)
so i guess the question is - how broke are you, really? when i was broke, i'd head over to the "sale" cart at the LHBS. there'd be an old dusty 3lb can of LME, a few random bags of DME with duct tape covering a spot where they'd been ripped open, some old recipe kits that didnt sell, etc. ever notice that the scale/milling/weighing area of the LHBS is a mess? i'd offer to clean up the tables, scales and mill area if i could take it home. and definitely double-crush your grains if you do BIAB.
got any fruit trees nearby? my neighbor has apricots and pears they let us have whenever we ask. jack up your sugars by juicing some old ripe fruit into your carboy for a tart fruity saison. or go prison style and use prune juice. or canned fruit cups. your regular white/brown/turbinado sugars, corn syrups, molasses, etc. are all cheaply bought in bulk at your local supermarket if you wanna add some alcohol for a bigger, drier saison.
the possibilities are very wide with this style and overall its alot more friendly to work with when you're using whatever you can scrounge up cheaply. farmers know how to make do with what you've got on hand, its a good way to think when you're cash poor.