The Search for a Host

I've been looking at all kinds of web hosting sites and it's been pretty daunting. There are so freaking many places and most of them don't offer very much space for a site. I've looked at the ones that charge and I'm just not sure I'm ready to pay just yet. I'm thinking I'd be better off hosting on a free one for now and then if I do well enough and can keep it up, then I'll pay. But, on the other hand, I really want to have my own domain name instead of having a host's sub-domain attached. I want it to look professional and kaleidoscopic-resonance.com looks a lot better than kaleidoscopic-resonance.geocities.com or something like that, you know? And I would like to be able to recruit my own advertisers to make money for myself, rather than have my host put their own advertiser's banner up on my page and make money off of me. I'm so undecided! Maybe I haven't been looking in the right places. I'm curious what everyone else who's planning their project to go online is thinking. Does anyone know a right and easy way to go about this?