Ross and Maxx are great, as is Tuesday Morning. I've bought some good stainless pans there. Also eBay is great for both new and used sets of pans. I mean, stainless isn't going to wear out, putt it through the dishwasher, scour it with Bon Ami, it's as good as new! I found a set of excellent, thick bottom waterless stainless for a friend at an estate sale. My husband has been spoiling me with All-Clad pans that he gets at a discount from Metro Kitchen. Oh...and don't overlook plain steel pans from restaurant supply places. They require oil, cook quickly, become nonstick like cast iron with proper care. It's a new fad, and I don't have any, but I've been reading about them on cooking sites. They are quite inexpensive.
Stainless is easy to care for, but takes some getting used to. It heats slowly and unevenly. You need to put the pan on medium heat for a while then add oil and let that heat up, then add food. If you turn the heat down or up, it can take the pan a while to react. So the best stainless has thick bases, with layers of aluminum and/or copper inside to heat more evenly. It takes a little time to learn what works best with a particular pan, and usually it's lower heat then you think. The thin steel pans are more like copper. They heat very evenly and respond more quickly to changes in temperature, so they are good for things that you will be paying close attention to. Heavy cast iron is the opposite - it heats slowly but evenly and holds heat for a long time, so once you get a cast iron pan at the right temperature it cooks very evenly. It's because the pan has more mass and doesn't cool down when you put the food in it. Cast iron is great for cornbread, any kind of frying.