I got the A+ in 98, you don't need to spend any money except on the test itself if you don't want to. Everything you need to know you can find on the net, there are plenty of free sites full of the info you need to learn as well as practice questions. Your best bet is to buy a study guide with maybe some practice tests on CD-Rom, go through the book thoroughly and every night or whenever you have free time, study a sheet of practice questions that you will carry wherever you go. Of course do all the hands on parts that you can too and try to understand everything rather than just memorize it, and you'll pass.

Same for the MCSE, there are a gazillion prep sites out there. With the MCSE, take one test at a time rather than trying to cram for them all at once, but before you take any try to get a working background of all of them you plan to take. Then concentrate on each individual test, every two or three weeks is a good schedle if you have the time, it's better to do them kind of fast because you retain the info from the previos tests better, and it will come up again somewhere. When you can go through a fresh set of practice questions and sample tests with high scores everytime, you are ready. If you have the desire and discipline to study you can do it for next to nothing.