Affordable niche research tool recommendations

Hi IH,

After reading "Start Small, Stay Small" by Rob Walling, I am trying to take a structured approach to niche finding. I'm a builder at heart but with 2 little kids, I simply cannot justify the effort anymore spending 3 months working evenings and weekends building a product that nobody cares for.

I appreciate the power of keyword research and I am looking for tools that can give me simple things like: search volume, cost per click, alternative keywords, etc. There are a lot of tools available but not at a cost I can justify for myself right now. Also a lot of these tools offer features I don't even understand right now. The tools recommended in the book seem dated.

Searching on Google gives me plenty of options and reviews but most of them are affiliate feeder sites with top 10 lists. Nothing against that per se but I am looking for unbiased reviews.

What tools would you recommend?

Thanks,
Thomas