Just look at it as virtual money. You have money in your wallet? You have Bitcoin in your virtual wallet. Google Bitcoin Wallets and your location and you'll get tons of options. I've talked to
@Natty about this. She pays much more in fees with GoCelery but her first option was CoinBase. read through this thread. There are lots of suggestions.
As for things being more expensive, at the very least it should be equal since most places give a 20% or more discount for using bitcoins. It maybe ends up being the same if you used a credit card but lots of vendors won't take them.
I was utterly confused too but once you get the basics, which is all I really get, ( don't ask me about clockchain) then you're good to go. If you want to buy btc, you have to have a wallet that lets you buy.
If you're in the US try Coinbase. I'm happy with it. Also happy with Multibit but just use that for holding my btc.