Expanding opening knowledge

So does anyone have any advice on how to expand my opening knowledge without spending any money as I don't have extra to spend on chess. Chess.com's opening database does not count as a viable option.

Openings are the last thing you need to be working on.

Explain please.

Look at your ratings.  I looked at some of your games, and will offer the same advice i offer everytime another beginner/low rated player asks about openings.

You dont follow opening prciniples.

You hang pieces.

You miss simple tactics.

Studying openings is not going to solve any of that.  

Its up to you.  You want to study openings, then good luck to you.  

Well I think you're not really understanding what i'm saying I'm not talking about completely focusing on studying openings. I'm talking about learning one or two openings for both sides to give me a guide to go by to where I don't miss so many opening traps. So I can get through the opening and have a better middlegame position than what I end up with when I just try to develop, fight for the center, and get castled in the opening.

shoould teach traps first then opening concepts,theen one might know when to sense when a trappy position is in the air.

When I coached a very successful high school team, it was important for newbies to learn the principles of the opening, and the old book by GM Larry Evans and 6 other GM's, How to Open a Chess Game was our general opening Bible.

But it was necessary, even for 700-900 OTB rated players to develop an opening repertoire for the reason that such players needed help in determining middle game strategies and tactics and some openings like the Vienna Game, Bishop's Opening, c3 Sicilian, French Advance, etc. have some common themes in terms of Pawn Storms, etc.

The more comfortable the player was with a small number of opening, the better and faster he/she played.

Look for some of the legally free opening books that may be 50 or more years old but where the openings are still valid.  For example, World Champion Capablanca's 1921 work, Chess Fundamental mentions a few opening and is easy to find as a .pdf file.

Here are a couple pages where free Opening Books are listed:

http://bishopsbounty.blogspot.com/2009/01/free-online-chess-books.html

http://billwall.phpwebhosting.com/

Also, try Googling things like "free ruy lopez book"

I did it as a test and it led me to a chess.com comment thread:

https://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-openings/ruy-lopez-variations---all-free-pdf

which led me to this page:

http://chess-openings-for-beginners.blogspot.com/2010/11/ruy-lopez-all-variations-free-chess.html

which contained this link:

http://www.chesselo.com/ruy-lopez-variations.pdf

which contained this link about openings in general:

http://chess-openings-for-beginners.blogspot.com/

Maybe you could get access to something through the library? Maybe ask about:

Discovering Chess Openings by GM John Emms (2006)
https://web.archive.org/web/20140627114655/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/hansen91.pdf
Openings for Amateurs by Pete Tamburro (2014)
http://kenilworthian.blogspot.com/2014/05/review-of-pete-tamburros-openings-for.html
https://chessbookreviews.wordpress.com/tag/openings-for-amateurs/
https://www.mongoosepress.com/catalog/excerpts/openings_amateurs.pdf
Winning Chess Openings by GM Seirawan (~1999)
https://web.archive.org/web/20140627132508/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/hansen173.pdf

"... This book is the first volume in a series of manuals designed for players who are building the foundations of their chess knowledge. The reader will receive the necessary basic knowledge in six areas of the game - tactcs, positional play, strategy, the calculation of variations, the opening and the endgame. ... To make the book entertaining and varied, I have mixed up these different areas, ..." - GM Artur Yusupov

"... If you want to play competitively, then you must develop an opening repertoire. ..." - GM Patrick Wolff (1997)

Stop wasting your time.  Without software and a training guide like Chess openings Wizard or other openings trainiing guide you will not have the necessary practice in openings visualization pattern memory banks.  These are necessary together with middle  game visualization pattern memory banks in order to expand your opening knowledge into an opening repertoire.  It will take you approximately 2-3 years to accomplish this.  In the end you will have an opening repertoire that consists of 3 openings as White and 3 openings as Black.  

More comprehensively there are 4 basic units  you should study 1 hr everyday in order to accumulate 1000s of visualization pattern memory banks into your brain.    They are as follows:

1. Tactics visualization pattern memory banks

2. Endgame visualization pattern memory banks

3. Opening visualization pattern memory banks

4. Middlegame visualization pattern memory banks.

I dont think there is anything odd about your view on this.  Everyone is different, and we all learn at a different pace, and in different ways.  I offered my opinion, simply because that is what experience has taught me.  I work with kids a lot, and there always seems to be 2 kinds of students.  Those that take it serious, and the casual student.  Obviously, the students that take it serious improve at a faster rate.  But what i have noticed is the kids i start out with Opening Principles, as opposed to the kids that show up and claim to be "agressive/tactical" because giving away a bishop on f7 worked...once...against a beginner, or want to learn openings, progress at a faster rate.  That by no means proves anything, its just what i have experienced.  Honestly though...whatever works for you is fine.

417: 3 openings as White and 3 as Black? 

 How’s that even possible? Answers to 1. e4, 1. d4, 1. c4, 1.Nf3 and other less important ones like 1. b3 are already more than 3, as Black. Certain transpositions are possible but even that is more than three, and there is a chance the opponent won’t cooperate in the alleged transpositions. All kinds of unfounded advices in the chess literature.

 And the tendency to go for simpler openings implies that later on the ‘memory banks’ will have to be deleted in favor of more complex openings, which may take up to 20 years to master.

"... Review each of your games, identifying opening (and other) mistakes with the goal of not repeatedly making the same mistake. ... It is especially critical not to continually fall into opening traps – or even lines that result in difficult positions ..." - NM Dan Heisman (2007)

https://web.archive.org/web/20140627062646/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/heisman81.pdf

lol really , if you open a opening book,youll find so many lines that are just complex and might never hit the same line again for years.its the ideas behind the openings that you need to know.

Rather than get into all these details that your perspective views as complicated and confusing.  Let us first consider a simple question.  

Do you know when the middle game begins in a game of chess?

It is a simple answer.

DeirdreSkye

I pose to you the same question that I posed to troy915 regarding when the middle game begins.

Regarding your reference to the complicated terminology that I use.  Here is a simple term:  ever heard of the opening tree.