Well, my best advice is to blow the budget! Aside from the sensor/film and lens, light is what makes or brakes a photo but I only realised that after skimping and saving and finally doing what I should have in the start, getting a decent flash!
I struggled on with the Jessops 280ABZ for a while with the Fuji I was using at the time and it did teach me how to use manual in fairness. Manual mode is the only way to get any kind of consistency with cheap flashes, and sometimes top quality ones too! The Jessops flash is cheap as chips, something around ?40 if I remember.