Originally Posted by N.Stocks 
I'd love one but I can't afford it !
If you have a craigslist or something like that, see if you can get someone to come buy for $25 to calibrate your monitor w/ their device. You just need a good color profile to get you in the ballpark once and this will keep costs down for you. Or buy a calibrator and sell it on fleabay after you're done with it.
FWIW, I did the visual calibration (make sure the grey bars show up right, etc) thing and thought I was in the ballpark but when I printed and told them not to fiddle w/ the colors, they didn't look right. That's why I'm suggesting using a calibration device instead...