Poor man lighting
There are ways to spend very little and still get good results, as long as you don’t care about your gear looking true professional. The result will be better than what you get from a $500 light kit.
This set-up can be done with 3 lights, although the lights shown are a bit more expensive, they can be substituted with something very cheap and still get good results. Buy a shop light at Walmart or Home depot for about $40, also buy black foil to contain spills; or you can buy a Lowel Omni open face light for about $150.00. Shine the light thru a one stop silk, there are many available on the market but if you are really short on cash you can make your own by building a frame out of 1x2 wood strips. Stretch and staple shower curtain material, either white opaque or frosted on the wood frame. This will be you key light, just make sure that you keep the light at least two feet away from the frame. Buy two Lowel Pro light, one for hair and one for background, with accessories they are about $160 each. For fill buy a large sheet of white foamcore, add few inexpensive or used stands and you can be in business for about $600.00
Build you own lightweight boom arm by attaching a 3 foot long lightweight aluminum tube to a standard grip head. The tube can be purchased at any hardware store.
For counterweight use any type of bag as a replacement for sandbags, put inside the bag your extra batteries, grab some rocks from outside or whatever else you have then tie the bag to the bottom of the stand.