If you are planning to host your web site on a shoe string budget, check out the offers of BlueHost. They have been around since 1996 and have built up a great reputation in the hosting industry. Just $6.95 per month (if you opt in for their 24 months plan, otherwise $7.95 for a 12 months plan) gets you unlimited data transfer & disk space along with free domain name.
Do not worry about the other shared accounts on their server. The suPHP ensures strong isolation between your account and that of others. With 100 MySQL databases and unlimited domains per account it is ideal host to start and grow your business with. This host also provided up to date MySQL 5.0.45 and PHV 5.2.45 along with support for UTF-8 & mbstring. The icing on the cake is their fast response to technical queries via email and over the phone.