http://www.makeforum.org/home.php http://www.forumotion.com/ http://www.freeforum.se/ http://www.aceboard.net/ http://www.freeforum.ca/
visit some free web hosts who offer free forum hosting until you find your software then move your site fromtheir
buy, justhost.com unlimited bandwidth hosting about $5 a month, has simple machines and MYBB "p.s i can't spell "
I find that there's so much flexibility in the look and control at Forumotion.com (as oppose to using other services). My favorite parts about forumotion is... 1.)Personalized profile. This is my favorite. 2.)Flexibility in the look and creativity of the forum 3.)Better Security (in many ways) Very Happy 4.)Ease of control/organization 5.)Forum chat box
Getting a forum running will cost about $10 yearly for a domain, and about $8 (max) per month for a host. I use phpBB and love it. Please, note that is extremly hard to get a forum going and will require you o post a lot of content yourself or pay for others to do so!
Do not forget to take into consideration good spam-protection, otherwise forum can turn in rubish or else You can hire good moderators to take control over Your foum. But most of the time it drives additioanl costs in forum maintenance.
I am in the same boat. I just started my forum and I am still setting it up and configuring it. I cheated and used Fantastico De Lux which came with my bluehost via the cPannel. Hostgator is owned by bluehost and is almost identical in services provided.