WordPress is a great option, after looking into it and trying various combinations I have found that this is the best way to set up a site:
buy a domain of your own about $11 a year(godaddy.com is fabulous at customer service) the reason not to take a wordpress domain is because they can decide to take your content offline without notifying you and you have no control of your content
buy a hosting package (again I recommend godaddy) about $60 a year
if you buy your domain and hosting on go daddy you can launch the wordpress application on the godaddy site as well and that is free
then you need a theme for your site which you can also get for free, BUT after spending lots of time working on free themes I learned that they are not upgraded, have bugs and do not work 100%. So if you are serious about a site, you can use a free theme to learn a bit but to insure you can post, update info and not have a virus infected site you should buy a theme. A one time cost of about $80 (studiopress.com/themes)