A good taper needs good supplies. To be a good taper, a good tape deck is a must. My brother and I use two dual-well decks, but only use the right side of each. Greg can do a number of tapes at one time, while we have to suffer with just one at a time. Once you have your decks, you need other supplies, which include blank tapes and bubble mailers.
Blanks are pretty pricey when it comes down to it.
Unfortunately, if you want 100 or 110 minute tapes, you have to buy them by the twos or fives. That is, when you get a package full of tapes, you save the packaging and use it for something you'll be sending out in the near future. So, you'll end up spending some dough on new mailers as well, which can be found in all sorts of sizes at Office Max, and I like to buy those in bulk, too. As for extras, some traders, like Dustin Moskowitz of Connecticut, have a program for their computer which will print out tape covers and help keep track of trades. However frugal you are about trading, it's going to cost you money.