I just finished a conversation with a friend who has had a WordPress blog hosted for free on WordPress.com for some time now, but is wanting to move to a self-hosted WordPress installation for a variety of reasons, most notably the limitations WordPress.com imposes on your ability to monetize your blog.
The biggest misconception he had about moving to a self-hosted installation was surrounding the issue of paying for a hosting account. My friend already has a website, in addition to his blog, so he already has a hosting account. He …