Didn't realize there was a thread for LOTRO here on CAG. I've been playing since F2P (actually got in the last weekend of beta) and am having a lot of fun. Of course, the CAG in me wanted to get the best "bang for my buck" so I did what others have suggested.
1) Snagged MoM complete from amazon for $7.95.
2) Got in on that $4.95 VIP starter pack from last weekend.
So $12.95, I've got VIP status (for now), and all the perks of that for my characters. And I've got Moria, so I don't have to spend TP on it. I got the 1000 TP for the starter pack, got 500 afterwards for my VIP status (so that deal was worth 1500TP total), and have earned about 250 TP so far. My plan is to unlock a few Quest Packs along the way so I can easily get to 50, then spend the rest of my points on Mirkwood so I'll have the entire game for $12.95, and never have to pay a sub. woots!
Oh, and I'm really diggin this game. I'm a long time MMO vet, currently an endgame WoW player, but LOTRO has a way more laid back, enjoy the PvE/Questing feel, and looks beautiful (The Shire I think looks pretty amazing). At first, I was all gung-ho to race to 65 (its the WoW player in me), but after playing a few days, I totally would rather slow down and enjoy the ride.
My only gripe - wish that 24 hour horse you start with lasted longer than 24 hours! Walking everywhere in the Shire kinda bites...oh well only 4 levels to go until I get a permanent mount (another great VIP perk)!
Oh, and don't know if its already posted (didn't read through everything) but here's a link to the list of all Turbine Points in the game - its great for F2P players to plan on how to get all the stuff for free!
http://lotro.mmorsel.com/p/tpfinder.html
Oh, one more tip. There is a quest at the start of the dwarven area (after the tutorial) where you get 10TP - its supposed to teach to you how to spend TP. But if you instead save it (don't use it to unlock the quest like the quest giver wants you to), you can use it to buy other things! Now you can do this quest once per server. Since TP is account-wide, if you make a dwarf on each server and do this quest, you end up with like 100 extra TP! That's more than 1/3 of the way to the first quest pack for doing nothing other than making a character.