Houston,
Find an old plastic tote in the closet that you aren't using. Drill some holes in the side of it. Put some moistened newspaper, cardboard, and leaf shreds in there with a handful of dirt. In with the worms and a small amount of kitchen scraps. Then leave them alone for a couple of weeks.

houston,

eric is right, the cheapest way of getting a bin is to build it yourself. To get worms you can try one of the following:
1) find them yourself under leaves in the garden. The only problem with this is that it's labour-intensive and you don't know what "make and model"/species you have.
2) find a helpful person on craigslist, freecylce or vermicomposters.org and get some for free.
3) buy them at a bait shop or at a worm farmer.

Enjoy
Alex

Here is a link that might be useful: Google search for: build own worm bin

Another good place to find worms it the local pet store like Petsmart in the fish department.

I built my worm bins from plywood and 2x4 and painted them with laytex paint.

Having legs on the bins is handy if your bin might be where ants could get at it. I put the legs in containers of mineral oil so the ants can't climb up into my outdoor bins. Water would work but can breed mosquitos and it evaporates. The mineral oil will last longer and won't breed mosquitos.

My bins are about 2' wide by 4' long and 18 inches deep set on legs at a comfortable height for digging out castings. I have screen lids on the bins and they are placed in a shaded old unused dog kennel.

I definitely think making your own bin is the way to go. Either a plastic storage bin or build your own wood bin. I would not spend 100's of dollars on fancy worm bins. If you have trouble finding worms free or locally, you can go to the page I'm linking here to see pictures of my worm bin as well as a link to the place I got my worms. They also sell the can of worms worm bins or plans for wood bins but I doubt you need to spend money for such a thing since the worms don't care much about the bin, just that the conditions in it are right.

Here is a link that might be useful: TCLynx, vermicomposting