I'm just starting out as well. Things I've tried/trying:
Ask a local bar for a bag or two of empties. The smaller bars seem to be a little more friendly to the idea. I offered to help clean up/shut down a bar one night their bags of empties from that night.
If you have any kind of recycling center, ask them if you can raid their bottle bin or if they have an after-hours drop dumpster (like mine) you can always go dumpster diving.
Ask friends to save theirs. You could always trade them some of your beer for their empties.
Drink a lot of beer from now until your batch is ready to be bottled. (make sure they are pop tops and not twist offs)
Buy them - though if you don't have a local place that sells 'em cheap you may as well buy them filled and empty them.
I'm sure theres other ways too.. these are just what came to me offhand.
Good luck.