All the things you mention can be improvised:

• baking stone - Ceramic tiles from Home Depot. 4 x .99.
• lame - a double-edge razor on the end of a coffee stirrer stick. About 3 bucks for a pack of 12 razors (stirrer free at Starbuck's)
• couche - Linen dish towels. I think you can find them at Dollar Tree for a buck a pop. If not, try Target or Walmart.
• baking parchment - 3 bucks for a 50 foot roll. A handful of corn meal can be used to do the same thing.
• banneton - I use some baskets I found at Goodwill for 99 cents each.

You can spend a lot if you want to, but you can be fully equipped for next to nothing. If you really want to drop money on gear, get an instant read thermometer, a digital scale, and a baking stone. You could probably drop a couple hundred on those by going to William Sonoma or Kitchen Kaboodle, but you should be able to get all them for under 50 online, at Target, or at one of the kitchen gear places in the Troutdale outlet mall.

I think you will not find cheaper bannetons or bread baskets than at

http://www.sfbi.com/baking_supplies.html

I highly recommend the FibraMent baking stone, 3/4" thick. The 1/4" pizza stones have been less than satisfactory for me.

Floydm is correct, most of the items can be fabricated or substituted by you. I do, however enjoy the linen-lined bannetons and the heavy couches made for bread baking.

I think the instant read thermometer is essential. The scale might wait a bit unless you are going directly into weighing your ingredients.

Baker's scrapers are nice but pricey. Try a wide (5" or more) dry wall spatula from the local hardware store.

Despite what some say, stainless steel bowls are fine for fermenting and raising your doughs.

A good pair of heat resistant gloves will come in handy. You may pay a lot at bakery sites or go to that local hardware store again.

A good plastic bowl scraper, mine is over a year old and holding nicely, may be obtained from King Arthur slour for a dollar.

Another thing avail on line but also in Dollar stores is the elastic-edged bowl cover; looks like a shower cap. It's great for use in covering bowls of fermenting doughs, sourdough starters, poolish's, etc. Reusable and saves the frustration of using the Saran-type wraps.

I bought a commercial lame and deserted it for single-edged razor blades; no handle required.

Good luck,

Willard

As a fellow new enthusiast, I have to say one of the great pleasures of bread baking for me is its accessibility.

Aside from the satisfaction of producing wonderful stuff inexpensively, there is a practical value in developing your technique with a variety of different tools. You can figure out what really works for you without dropping a bundle on accoutrements that you might end up dumping anyway. (E.G., Willard's experience with the lame.) I'm still fussing around with shaping equipment -- towels, baskets, non-stick pads, cornmeal -- and I'm still not ready to commit to, say, buying quality bannettons, and probably won't be until I have more confidence in my skills.

The one early investment I found really, really helpful was an instant-read thermometer. It's a huge help and not all that pricey.

The good news is whatever you try, you *will* make good bread and all your hungry friends will love you truly madly deeply.

"I am not a cook. But I am sorta cooky."

A very useful tool is a peel, and even though they aren't to expensive if you want to work with longer loaves the peel to need is excessive large and therefore more expensive than the smaller ones.  But a small one is perfect for pizza.  So I suggest buying a small pizza peel, and then for work with longer loaves, buy a piece of wood at home depot or lowes, about .75 inches thick, 7.5 inches wide and about 18 inches long is pretty good.  I went expensive and got a nice piece of oak at $2.35 a foot, but hey you only need a foot and half.  They should also have poplar and pine which are even cheaper, but just as good for baking, I just think the oak looks nice.  Just go in and ask for "a foot and half of one by eight inch ..." of whatever type of wood you want, and they'll even cut it to length for you.  So no tools are needed on your part, since I know not everyone has a table saw at home.  There is special instruction for caring for wood that will probably need to be washed, just look up instruction on caring for wooden cutting boards, it's the same idea.  But in general just flour up your board like you would a peel and it's perfect for transferring long loaves to your oven!

demegrad

http://www.demegrad.blogspot.com

An if you're having trouble with loaves sticking to inexpensive towels being used for a couche I made one, to size, from canvas, the canvas is thick and very tightly woven.  I don't know for sure if those aspects of canvas actually increase it's non-stickiness, yes I said non-stickiness, but I always just use some flour and never have had a problem.

 I got the canvas at wal-mart's sewing section, it's sells in a 3 foot wide roll for aobut $4 a foot.  Again a foot and a half is good but you can get the size to whatever you want.  The tricky part is finding someone with a sewing machine to fold the edges and sew them up.  Luckily it's an easy/small job and any friends with a sewing machine probably won't mind doing it for you.

demegrad

http://www.demegrad.blogspot.com

I made myself a bread board for kneading for about $10......bought a 2'x2' block of 3/4" birch plywood for $6 at  Menards,  cut it down to 18"x18" on the table saw, sanded it down and doused it with food safe mineral oil ($4).  It is wonderful to not have the dough stick to my counter tops, and beats a $20 12"x14" wooden cutting board!  I use a double edge razor blade taped to a shish-ka-bob skewer for a lame, and Tupperware bowls work great for bannetons when lined with a $1 tea towel!