Is there actually a cost effective way to home brew beer?

I have all the very basic equipment such as carboy, food-grade buckets, airlock, etc.. I started just collecting stuff that people were giving away. So I went to the home brew store and bought the malt extract, hops, barley, yeast that I needed but in the end spent probably about $45 for a 5 gallon batch. I brewed a really tasty pale ale but it ended up that each beer cost about a dollar and plus the time involved in the whole brewing process. It was fun and all but I thought that you were supposed to be able to brew some good beer for dirt cheep!.. Which would of course make it all the more enjoyable. At that price I might as well just buy a case of Henry Weinhard's which may not taste the same but sure would be time and cost effective. Does anyone have advice on how to beat the system in this regard?