Forum Moderators: phranque
On the other hand, whether your site is intended to make some side cash, support you, or simply be a labor of love (yeah, some of us do that ya know) you may not want a free template.
Only you can decide if something you'll be spending LOTS of time on is worth some small upfront investment.
Another issue is will a free template require you to link back to someone else, and will that free ad in exchange for the template design be worth having the the permanent ad tag.
Remember, even free isn't always Free.
Good luck in making your decision.
Also keep in mind that a lot of the templates out there are heavily graphical and not search engine friendly. Still, if simple ones can be found at a reasonable price it is a convenience.
The free templates taught me the basics of tables and how to do a three column layout.
The free templates got my feet wet, and I then developed a lot of extra knowledge and created my own design. That's probably what you want to do as well.