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When starting in color your going to go through a bunch of paper and chemicals. I make up 5-liter batches and store it in recycled wine "boxes". You can make up smaller batches too.
For me 10-liters is enough for about 200 8x10s. (I'm not as efficient as a minilab which can get about 500.) Roughly $50 plus shipping from Adorama.
I've used the arista stuff (using your logic when I started) and it works fine, similar sheet throughput. So maybe 40 sheets For $32 (and I bet the shipping is within pennies). So for 18 bucks extra with the 10-liter kit, you get enough to do roughly 160 more sheets. If you reorder Arista even once you are behind the 1 10-liter Kodak kit.
Given the learning curve, if you get 4 nice prints out of the first 40 you will have done well, it gets easier and nice proofs come more often after you "get it", but even today if I get 1 really nice print (not just a nice proof) out of 5 tries with a new negative, I've done well.
I actually buy roll paper now, 300 or so feet at a whack and don't bat an eye when I need another 10 liters.
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I was going to suggest the RA4 thing too. You'll get colour funkiness unless the filter pack is exactly right, but that can be a powerful creative option should you choose to employ it.
If you want to print on graded paper, there's one more contrast hiccup to deal with: the C41 process is aimed at (I think) a contrast index of about 0.5, whereas people will typically develop B&W films to a CI of 0.7 to print a "normal scene" on grade 2 paper. So even without the orange mask causing you grief with VC papers, the lower inherent contrast of C41 will mean you need to print harder still. If you're buying graded papers for the film you've already shot, I'd start with grades 3 and 4 to mitigate the lower CI.
