won't it work anyway?

Absolutely, materials are important, but you don't need an expensive sword or athame when you could just use a butter knife that you bless and dedicate. That's the basis of Kitchen Witchery. You use materials and tools because of their correspondences. Again, sword for air. You can use any kind of knife in place of it because its energy is the same if you bless it to be so, and you yourself believe that it is.

As far as Walmart candles go, that's actually all I've ever used. *Smirks*

You are worrying about it too much. If you try too hard to make sure your practice is perfect before you begin to practice then you may be chasing your own tail for eternity. Slow down. Breathe. Yes. I aspire to purchase my goods from more magical places but thats not always possible to add to the mistiqe and energy when you are first starting out. Or even in a pinch or maybe your friend is just cheap.

LoL what's cheap about having, good common sense. No one in their right mind would pay ninety five dollars when they could get it done with five. Like I said she's the real deal and is about results. Not about putting on a show or feeling witchy or powerful.
My point of mentioning the candle was about the simplicity of getting results not about financial costs of casting.

Word

Wands, cups, knives, circles are but tools, tools that allow the caster to focus on the matter at hand.

Used to be what separated a witch from a sorcerer, was that a witch utilized a plethora of tools, and a sorcerer had reached the point where they no longer needed tools to focus.

Today those lines have blurred....

Azerelus, that makes sense to me.
Personally, I find tools distracting. And following the spells written by others distracting as well. I wind up concentrating more on following instructions than
energy. My instinct has led me to other ways.