good lighting is expensive. for simple low cost lighting. your best bet for a very low budget is to invest in some cheap bulb holders and then get daylight corrected compact fluorescent lights. if you need more light get a bigger watt rating or just move the light stands closer. home depot, lowe's, and even wal-mart will have these daylight color temperature bulbs for about $8 each in watt ratings from 40 to around 150. your $200 will go away pretty fast just in the light stands. since sturdy stands will last a long time and can be used with other lighting systems later, i would start there and consider them a long term investment. you will grow to dislike cheap stands or you won't trust them, and if you get strobes later on, you will want really sturdy stands anyway, so start now, by them once and be done with it. used bogen 8086 light stands can be had on e-bay for 30 to 50 dollars each. you can often find them auctioned in pairs to simplify shipping issues since that is a big expense on a long item like a light stand. i have used them for years and they hold up my white-lightning ultra1200 strobes with medium sized sofboxes just fine.
a next step would be to get some battery powered flash units with adjustable output. vivitar 285HV units can be found used for reasonable prices and can be adjusted down from their full output to about 1/32nd power. watch for bargains on other units that may be a better value. nikon sb-24 flash units are getting very cheap on the used market and have an impressive light output that can be controlled on the back panel of the flash in small increments. a canon 550ez (not the ex series) flash might be another alternative you could pick up cheap. using NiMH rechargeable batteries, you can get a lot of work out of battery powered flash units and some inexpensive optical slave triggers. put these flash units you have paid $50-75 each for, add the triggers for $20ish each, and add a photoflex flex clamp that adapts the flash to the light stand and adds the utility of an umbrella holder for about $20ish and for about $100 for each head you now have a controllable portable light setup with power that rivals the cheap 110 and 160 watt-second strobes.
the next graduating step then is to go to either a pack light setup or monolights. pack lights are nice and light and you can get cheap ones like the novatron 240 kits, but right now the sleepers in entry level strobes are either alienbees http://www.alienbees.com that offer a lot of power, a lot of features and a lot of control for $225-$380 per head. or photogenic has their studiomax line of strobes. they have some that can run on batteries and AC, or they have some AC only models that are a great value. the studiomax 320's can be had for about $300 per head if you shop around a bit, and they are decent equipment, not cheap junk you will be replacing regularly. i tend to favor the alenbees just because i have dealt with their parent company (the makers of white-lightning flash systems) since 1989 and have always been pleased with their support, fast turnaround and customer service attitude.
or if you just want to start with one good light and not think about the various steps of collecting parts get an alienbees "beginner bee" package. it will cost a bit more than you have right now, but its a solid start that you are unlikely to regret. a B400 160ws flash with ubmbrella and a decent stand will cost you $309 and shipping.
the biggest mistake i see beginners making is getting too much light and not enough control. in the case of monolights, most designs perform better (more consistent output and color temperature) if you use them in the top half of their power range. if you are in a small studio 160 to 320 watt-second lights are plenty. you will find that if you want to restrict depth of field a bit by using a bigger aperture you want less light and if your 640WS strobes can be dialed down to a 32nd of their total power that is still putting out 20WS. real measurements indicate they put out more than that because it is difficult to throttle down flashtubes without making the duration of the flash longer even if the intensity of the light is lower. so a flash init that is rated at 160ws and still has that same range of control will allow the same light levels with less shift in color and more consistent output, and add the luxury of even lower output when you really need to be able to shoot at f2 in your garage. my strobes are officially 600ws. i use half power or less most of the time even with double baffle softboxes covering the bulbs. at 15 feet about a quarter power gets me an f8 exposure at ISO200 on my digital camera. this is definitely overkill, but when i am using them for room lights at a wedding reception, i use almost all of that power. if i didn't already have the lights i have from my days of owning a studio where we regularly used 64iso film and insisted on F11 exposures, i would have purchased alienbees B400 (160ws) strobes for the things i do now.
developing your photographic craft is an individual pursuit. if your goal is to start doing a lot of portraiture and you need repeatable results a good pack light or monolight setup is priceless. if you are going to take pitures at the family holiday gatherings maybe twice a year, then battery strobes will be as much as you will ever need, if you are taking pictures of stuff t put on e-bay, then the daylight bulbs in clamp lights are cheap and take up little space when not in use and do an admirable job. which direciton do youwant to gorw, and how far do you want to go are the quesitons that need to determine what equipment you *need.* after you have your camera and a coupleof lenses, sturdy tripods and a good multifunction handheld light meter are usually safer and more useful investments than fancy external lighthing.
2cents@large.
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