If you're interested in picking this stuff up here's what you can get from RadioShack to get you Started.

looking at radioshack's website you can pickup a bread board for about $8
http://www.radioshack.com/product/in...entPage=search

you'll also want to buy a set of pre-cut wires for the board another $7
http://www.radioshack.com/product/in...entPage=search

this will give you oodles of wires pre-cut and stripped for easy use on a bread-board, trust me, it's worth it.

Then pickup a battery holder of some sort (need to power your circuit), I recommend one that holds 4 AA batteries since that will give you roughly 5V of power which is perfect for most projects. http://www.radioshack.com/product/in...entPage=search

If you're building car circuits you'll also want to pick up a "7805" power regulator. Which will take the 12V from the car as an input and output 5V for your circuit. http://www.radioshack.com/search/ind...regulator&sr=1

you'll only need to use this part when hooking it up to your car, this component is very popular more info here: http://www.kpsec.freeuk.com/powersup.htm#regulator One thing to be weary of is this part can get hot since it burns off the extra energy as heat. The 555 circuit probably wont draw much though so it might not even be a concern for this project.

Then just pickup whatever other parts you need for your particular project and go to town plugging stuff in and experimenting.

if you really want you could just leave the bread board right in your car, lots of people leave their projects like that and most bread boards have double sided sticky tape on the bottom for just such an occasion. I would recommend transferring your circuit to a regard proto-board and soldering it in place once you're happy with it though, since it's a lot more permanent and you don't have to worry about things falling out, then you can re-use your bread board for your next project.