If you're very budget limited, I'd say buy the cheap kit like YN-560 or YN-460II to get 2-3 more flashes and spend the balance on softboxes, reflectors etc. The light coming out of the flashes is not that different, and you can get 3 YN manual flashes (with optical slaves no less) for the price of a single 430exII.
BTW, I have a lot of original Canon kit. I'm almost always disappointed with cheap stuff and I *hate* crappy tools whether they're screwdrivers, cooking utensils or photo kit. But Yongnuo kit - mainly the YN-560 flashes and the RF602 triggers - are good stuff in my book. They also happen to be cheap.
The 308s flash meter waits for your flash to fire if you are metering without a sync lead. There's a special mode for it, and it will show a reading as soon as your flash fires. Fire the flash again and it will show a new reading.. it will timeout of course but works a treat to meter multiple times without touching any buttons.