Cheap Essential Mics

This page should contain info about <$150 mics that everybody should ideally have in their home recording setup.

Let's start with the totally obvious:

Shure SM-57

This mic should cost you <$100, and is very versatile. If you're just starting out, you can probably get away with recording everything with it (vocals, acoustic instruments, guitar amps, etc. etc.).

A cheap Marshall/MXL or other brand condenser mic

These go for around $100 I think and do a surprisingly good job on things like vocals, acoustic instruments, etc. Keep in mind that you'll need a phantom power source for these, eg a mixer with phantom power, a preamp unit with phantom power, etc. (Some D/A boxes these days have built-in preamps with phantom power.)