The best plans I ever saw for a homemade compost bin used 2 old baskets from washing machines that were welded together and mounted on a stand. The air holes are already there and you make an access door.
But the cheapest and easiest way to get started is to find a spot on the ground and begin piling your kitchen scraps and yard waste there. There is really no need for an official 'bin'. You can turn it over with a garden rake or shovel when the time comes. That is the way that I started, and I still have a pile that is closer to the house than my compost enclosure.
Good info.
Don’t the kitchen scraps bring mice and flies etc? That’s my main hesitation with just an open pile on the ground.
When we bought this place 20 years ago, the garden was as hard as concrete. My husband had a dickens of a time plowing it. The old garden fence had been removed, and wouldn’t you know it, the soil on the other side of the fence was a beautiful rich black and extremely easy to work. The previous owner had thrown scraps, trimmings, and weeds outside the garden. The only fertilizer he used was chemical because he didn’t want weeds.
My husband spent years adding clippings and dried manure from the barn, and plowing it into the soil. No more chemicals have been added, no pesticides. He spends endless time, squishing bugs by hand. Yuck! But it certainly has paid off.