I'm going to go through NameCheap. I was able to get the domain I want for $8/year (and that's not an introductory price, it will stay that price from year to year). Website builder was $14/year. I got an SSL for $4/year. And I found a coupon for 20% off my order so that brought everything to $24/year. I am okay with $2/month.
So, in my opinon, if you want your blog to be found through a search engine, it's much cheaper to go with a service like NameCheap rather than a free blogging site and then pay to link a custom domain. For less than the cost of 2 months at a "free" site I'm getting a full year.
I'm going to duplicate all my blog posts at my free Wix site, though, in case I ever decide to stop paying for the domain.