mailing list for crowdfunding and other announcements

So apparently everyone's going on about mailing lists.  I almost never join them, in fact, I'm planning to quite one of the two I subscribe to for being too longwinded and never writing about what their subject line says they will.

But people tell me they are popular.  Who am I to argue?*

How do I make and manage a mailing list with the minimum amount of expense or effort on my part?  

*oh right, yeh.  I'm usually the first in line.    

I think there are some services like aweber and mailchip that are super cheap as long as you don't have many people on your list.  They are good at getting you started.   We used aweber for a while, but it got very expensive.