Free/Cheap Ad-Free Wordpress Based Blog?

I have had my personal site (built using Wordpress) for a while. I have been paying about $8/month for hosting and am wondering if it is another expense I could get rid of.

I could move it to Wordpress.com but I believe it costs to have your own domain name (other than registration fees) and to not have advertisements (which can look tacky). I think it would run around $50/year with those two options.

Does anyone have any ideas as to what might be a good option? I have thought about Google Pages, a paid Wordpress Blog etc. If necessary, I am okay with moving to Blogger as well.

Ideas?