I will be the first to admit that it can be daunting selecting which tires and tubes to put onto your bicycle. If you ask online there are a lot of "wise old men of the forums" that will tell you to buy Gator Skins or some other more expensive tire, and either go tubeless or buy special tubes.
I have also found the mentality that will tell you to buy the cheapo Chinese tires and tubes and just keep repairing them until they fall apart.
I am actually somewhere in the middle (and below) both camps. I actually have never purchased tires individually for a bicycle, but I have purchased wheels with tires installed,and I've bought a number of tubes and patch kits.
In my opinion, tubes will pop and tires will get nails and screws in them. That is just the way of things. If you choose to go tubeless, you could still run over some broken glass or nails, or just come down too hard after a bump or pothole, burp a few PSI out of your tire and leave yourself running flat.
I recommend just holding onto your tires, whatever ones are on your bike, until you can't manage to keep riding them due to poor traction, and then replace them with whatever your local shop has in stock to fit your bike. As for tubes, they are very cheap, so I just keep an extra one on hand (duct taped to the top tube) and a pump strapped to my bike in case I need to replace on on the road or the trail. While I have run into this necessity before, I am usually able to walk to an air machine at a gas station and use my emergency cash stash in my seat bag to fill the replacement tube.
As for the cost, as I said I've never had to purchase tires, but I have bought well over 10 replacement tubes. My local shops sell replacement tubes for my wheel size for 2 or 3 dollars, and I normally buy 3 at a time.
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