Track recordings advice?

Hi everyone!

Me and my friends love oldies and we are so fed up of rubbish music nowadays. It's cheap and no real soul in it. Some music now is good, but most is appaulling.
We want to make our own music and we have been making music for years now.
We have made an agreement to go to Dream Studios and maybe do our recording there but one problem. I am at college and my friends are at sixth form three days a week, and I have paid a lot of money to go on field trips so if we record everyday at drema studios, wouldn't that be a waste of money?

I think if we could buy a track recording device then we can record ourselves and then out it onto a demo disc then we do it every evening.
Don't say "I would wait unti you are out of college" because quite a lot of people I know have done this when they were at college. And we would like to be a band soon and we made an agreement, so do you think having a recording device at home is a better idea?
How much do they usually cost? well i would strongly recommend to go 4 it...i am a recording enthusiast myself n abt the device, depends upon ur budget...but i would recommend products from M-Audio and also Softwares 4m Native Instruments...all da best.!!