Back when I was learning guitar in the 60's we didn't have light guage sets yet, so we would use two high E strings for the E and B and then use a B for the G and so on till the low E would actually be a A string. All we had to do was buy an extra high E string for less than a dollar (then)
There are so many resources now for beginning guitar players thanks to the net. I am overwhelmed by most of them... I think Guitar Tricks is a great site too.