Ok, so I've noticed there's a lot of confusion when it comes to bitcoins. I'll post a step by step procedure from my experience and hope this will help you out. Remember, this was my way of doing things. There are serveral variations on how to do a bitcoin purchase/transaction. But heres it goes.

1. You have to set up an account to have the ability to purchase bitcoins. I personally used mtgox. Mtgox is a website where you can:

   1. purchase bitcoins

   2. sell bitcoins

   3. donate/withdrawal your bitcoins to someone or vendor. For example, if you purchased an item online and the vendor accepts bitcoins, you have the ability to send your bitcoins to the vendor through mtgox.

   4. Track your history with bitcoins. It will show transactions you have made with your mtgox account. This is important because it helps you determine which bitcoin address you sent it to, when the transaction occurred, and for how much. For those not familiar with what a bitcoin address is, a bitcoin address is a long string of numbers and letters. The numbers and letters tell you which "account" your bitcoin payment is being sent to. Think of it as when someone wires funds to someone, the funds have to go to a specific location...well, the bitcoin address is that specific location in our situation. It's important that you get the bitcoin address correct...one number or letter off and it goes to the wrong destination. Once it leaves your mtgox account, its never coming back and you are out of money and out of luck. That is why you need to double and triple check the bitcoin address its being sent to!

Once you have a mtgox account setup, the next step is to put money into your mtgox account so you can purchase bitcoins. To put money into your mtgox account you have to go to another website called bitinstant. Within your mtgox account, there is a "fundings option" tab. Click on the tab, next it will give you a drop down menu with various options on how to fund your mtgox account with real money. There are several different ways, I personally chose the option called "bitinstant". Mtgox will give you a link to bitinstant. Click on it and this will take you to the bitinstant site.

Bitinstant Site
So far we've signed up on mtgox and now we are trying to figure out how to put money into the mtgox account via bitinstant. When you get to this site, it will give you options on how to put money into your mtgox account.
1. I chose to transfer the funds via cash option. Make sure you deposit enough money to cover the amount of bitcoins you want as well as applicable fees. Once you've picked your options, fill in the blanks. It will ask for your mtgox account #, amount you want to deposit, and email info.
2. Click on "send funds". Next page you will see a cash deposit "go" button. Before you click that, copy and paste the info in the "quote for cash transaction" for your records. Then click go
3. This will send you to a payment page. Fill in the blanks to create a payment slip. Click on nearest location. Once you are done with this, the payment slip will be emailed to you. Take the payment slip with you to the location you picked. I decided to go to a 7-11.

7-11
At the 7-11 I went to, they had a check cashing/money gram atm type of machine. Never seen anything like this before. I didn't speak with any of the 7-11 workers so the whole process was discreet. Anyways, on the machine it had a phone number and a location id number for that specific machine. I called the number, gave some general info and the machine id number. When they ask you what kind of transaction, tell them its a payment for a bill. From there, they will tell you what to do, step by step. At the end, you deposit the money into the atm. And that was it. Simple and easy.

By the time I got home, the funds were in my mtgox account. From there I purchased bitcoins. Once you purchase the bitcoins you can send it to anyone...but remember to have the proper bitcoin address.