Not a pro by any means, but made some awesome beers over the years...

#1 rule, Everything that touches the wort after flame out must be cleaned and sanitized. If you think something MAY have been compromised, re-sanitize it. Period! Almost 99.9% of bad brews come from lack of proper sanitizing and handling. I have never had a bad brew.

Tips;
Get a couple of how to books, find at least one that is written to your style. There are several. I can't say which ones because I gave mine to a guy.
I recommend the Beersmith program, it makes figuring out recipes, tracking your brews and mixes easy. It's cheap and has a BBS to get info and recipes off of.

DO NOT BUY A BASIC KIT. You will wast money. I personally don't use anything that is for family use, you don't want to use anything which will make your brew go bad. If you have a friend to borrow stuff from, do it, if not just get the basics from the beer store.

I suggest the following;

1) Hardware Store; get two 5 gallon plastic buckets and sanitize them (I use Home Depot ones) and 4'-5' clear vinyl hose to fit inside the neck of your fermenting carboy.

2) Go to your favorite mega store and get the following; a glass measuring cup (4-6 Cups), some plastic stirring spoons and a large stainless strainer, Saran wrap, 3 to 5 gallon stock pot, hand spray bottle.

3) Brew store. Ale Pail, bottle filler, suction transfer pump, capper, carboy plug with air lock, thermometer, hydrometer, food grade cleaner, food grade sanitizer (I like Star-San). Again, don't get the Cadillac of parts until you are sure you will stick with it.

Personal opinions.
I use a 5 gallon plastic "bottled water" carboy for my primary fermenter. You will probably need good water to start with so you kill two birds with one stone. Get two water bottles from wherever you like, I got mine from Home Depot or a grocery store when I first started.
IF you do secondary fermentation (which I highly suggest) you will need a glass carboy and plug/air lock. I have 5 and 6 gallon ones, but just one 5 will be good.

Remember that hand spray bottle from above? Take that and fill it with some of your mixed sanitizer. I spray everything including my hands before I start, remember rule #1... Use the Saran wrap to set all of your utensils and such on, it's sanitary and will keep stuff clean. It's also good to cap off tubes, wrap tools and carboy necks with to keep stuff off them.

Lastly;
From there, you need to decide on what brew and if you will do all liquid malt or steeped grains and malt... A boxed kit will be OK for the first one. I actually told the guy what kind of beer I wanted to make and HE created the recipe for me. In my case, a honey wheat. It was amazing.... AND about 12% Alcohol... If you go the steeping rout, you will need a steeping bag... Cheap to get.



One last tip. For primary fermentation, do not use the air lock for about 5 days or the fermenting has settled down. Take one of the 5 gallon buckets and put about 2 gallons of sanitizer blend in it. Sanitize the hose from above and use it for your air lock.
Here is a pic of mine - yes I brew in my office...