People recommend getting the Quad pack for $10 and Sam Gangee's Starter Pack for $2.50 - http://store.lotro.com/en/special-offers/item/samwisestarter…
Also subscribe to Premium for a month to unlock various limits on your characters.
If you are in love with Steam, they also have 75% off their version of LOTR Online: http://store.steampowered.com/app/212500/
bought a bunch of expansions years ago for like $40, never even made it to level cap (but i was close). don't know why but it got boring after a while, perhaps because the systems are just so dated.