The following websites offer free space to put up your personal web page. (not commercial). Sometimes the "fee" is that there are advertisements, banners, links or watermarks displayed on some or all of your pages. Several have and "Upgrade" for a few dollars a month that will let you avoid these elements on your pages.

NAME         SPACE AND PRICE             NOTES                               
Angelfire Free
5MB		 Pop up-ads or banners
Geocities Free
11 MB		 Pop up-ads or banners/
Geocity watermark
Homestead Free
12MB		 Link to Homestead
HometownAOL Free (Members only)
10MB		 Banners
theglobe Free
12MB		 Pop-up adds
Tripod Free
11MB		 Pop up adds
NBCI Free
11 MB		 Weekly e-mails to you with offers
 

You website will look a little like mine: Http://www.sitename.com/~membername/websitename
Now here is an interesting option, but it is not free!
How about a website with your own name, like:

www.maryjohnson.com

It requires a fee of $19.95 a year, which I believe is very affordable.
It would also work for your business, like

 www.kitchenrags.com

You get 20MB of space, plenty of e-mail addresses for your site and all the goodies. Follow this link if you are interested:

YES, I WANT MY OWN DOMAIN NAME