Unless you plan on heavily dosing, adding ferts and CO2, then a low light set-up is probably the best option. Given that you are on a shoestring budget, low light would actually work in your favor. High lighting requires more elements to keep everything balanced.
Plants that get lots of light need lots of carbon and lots of ferts. A low light set-up can usually be done with only fish waste as the main "fertilizer". I use no ferts, nor CO2, in my low light set-up 28W bulb on an 56G tall tank... Plants look great. The key is to get low lighting plants...
I have java fern, anubias, anacharis (elodea), and amazon swords. These plants are very easy, low maintenance and require very little effort on my part. They grow very well, and my java fern is constantly putting out little "plantlets", so even on a small budget, you can get a single java fern and in 6-12 months, you could have a half-dozen or so nice sized java ferns in the tank. Some of the java ferns are tied on to things in my tank, others are just removed and discarded. In my home tank I have 6 java ferns - 3 are at close to max height, while the others are still growing in - they are actually kind of bushy rather than tall. Plus, I was able to set-up a good number in a larger tank (pic below) without buying them... 4 more plants went there, and the java fern has been in my tank for about 2 years. I haven't split off my anubias, but I certainly could. It is VERY thick growth and one plant (closer to the light) has actually bloomed twice.
not sure if that would make a difference, 
