Depends on what type of flies your looking to tie. One of the most efficient and reasonable materials, imo, in terms of #of flies is patches of Elkand deer hair...especially if your talking dry flies.

Cabelas has decent quality stuff for the begginner. One of their deals I still particularly like is the multi-packs of different colored hackle in the same size range:


http://www.cabelas.com/cabelas/en/templates/pod/horizontal-pod.jsp?_DARGS=/cabelas/en/common/catalog/pod-link.jsp_A&_DAV=MainCatcat20431-cat20542_TGP&rid=&indexId=cat20542&nav Action=push&masterpathid=&navCount=1&p arentType=index&parentId=cat20542&id=00116 91