A few things to be aware of
Paint names/colours
Paint manufacturers can call any paint 'cadmium red' (or cobalt blue or any other name) regardless of what pigment it contains. It may in fact be a mixture of three poor quality or unpredictable pigments. Unless the label specifically identifies the pigment (learn about pigments, become a label scrutiniser and read the fine print!) don't believe it's what it says it is! It may look like cadmium red but the problem is, it won't act like cadmium red so it may mix horribly with other colours, fade with normal daylight exposure, have a weird consistency, etc. This can be intensely frustrating, and let's face it, making art is confusing and frustrating enough already. If you use dodgy stuff, you can't expect to get quality results and might have to settle for a series of 'interesting failures' without ever knowing what went wrong.
To save a lot of hassles when mixing colours, the rule of thumb is that the more pigments you mix, the more likely you are to encounter incompatibility between pigments and end up with muddy-coloured mixtures. For example, if you buy a red that contains three pigments and a blue containing the same number of pigments, you will never get a decent violet by mixing them--more likely a horrible brown. Try to buy single-pigment paints as much as possible for your mainstay mixer colours.
'Acid-free' paper
Once upon a time all paper was made from 'rag' (cotton or linen). Then about 100 or so years ago, wood pulp became the popular, cheaper constituent. Unfortunately, wood pulp contains contaminants that lead to the steady degradation of the paper. Such paper can be made temporarily 'acid-free' but, over time, ingredients in the paper will react with moisture in the atmosphere to produce acid. The only truly archival paper is made from cotton, linen (and possibly other time-honoured ingredients such as are used in oriental papers) or paper made from alpha cellulose (a type of paper where the destructive contaminants from wood pulp are removed). The latter is generally cheaper than cotton paper.
If you want your work to last more than fifty years (and in some cases it can start to degrade after a lot less time!) stick with the quality archival stuff--but of course don't blindly believe manufacturers' claims that their products are archival. Like paint colour names, this word can be bandied about pretty recklessly. An added bonus to using archival paper: its much, much nicer to work on in all ways (but you do need to pick the right type for the medium you're using).