You don't need to pay for tools to make a website. If can learn html and css you can make very nice websites. If you want a gui to make a website, use a wysiwyg tool (what you see is what you get). A good one is
http://www.nvu.com/index.php and it is free and cross-platform.
As for a forum, again, you don't need to pay. I recommend SMF as it is very easy to add plugins, and is easy to use. phpBB2 is a well-know free forum, but to do simple things like adding a plugin to people can attach files requires you to edit many files and such.
Here is a link:
http://www.simplemachines.org/
With my web hosting (see my sig), you get automated installations of many products including SMF and phpBB2. Among those are wiki's, support desks, content managers (cms's), blogs, shopping carts, image gallerys and many more.
Hope this helps you, Sevoma