I don’t think you have to spend a lot of money in order to make a portfolio that matches your image. I’m thinking back to my recent university days, where I was in a 4 year multimedia program. There’s a lot you can do in terms of graphic design and information flow in order to make a regular black and white portfolio your own. Easiest is changing the color of the portfolio itself. If you have a personal branding theme, now is the time to use it, and if you don’t, now is the time to make one! Even something like having a letterhead/professional treatment on any information pages, or simple monogram logo put on the front with elements brought in through the design, can really make the portfolio your own.
I made a portfolio in order to get into the program. It was a simple 12 or so page 8.5×11 spiral bound booklet, with a blue spiral binding (not terribly modular, but it could be taken off if I wanted to, but I don’t). I wrote the basic info on the cover with a silver gel pen which looked really elegant, and I further decorated the cover with an elaborate squiggle design (one of my signature items). Nothing over the top, just a bit of expression. Inside, first was a summary of myself, followed by each art page which had a piece of art and basic details, concluding with a page which had further explanation of all of the pieces. I also included a Flash-based and HTML portfolio on a CD that matched the theme of the portfolio, it included links to the live websites I had designed as well as higher resolution art pictures.
I’ve just seen your recent answer where you mention business cards as another part. That’s exactly what I was thinking would happen! This is why it’s a great time to think of a type of branding for yourself, that way you can replicate this branding throughout your business items.
There was a simple exercise we did in graphic design. Take two characters, say your initials, and use any fonts, sizes, colors, placements, occlusion, etc to make those two characters look spectacular and expressive in a square box. You really learned how to use negative space, how to occlude parts of the letters without losing their meaning, how you can change the alignment or color or size and tell a totally different message. Twice so with fonts. Many people in my class opted to use this method for designing their own independent ventures as it produces results which are surprisingly effective. It’s very easy to play around with doing this with Photoshop or even with the Gimp. And it’s also a great way to get those brain juices flowing – you may stumble on a font or color that just resonates inside of you, and that may spark another idea… then you’re on the train to inspirationland!