You can buy bitcoins from either exchanges, or directly from other people selling them. You can pay for them in a variety of ways, ranging from hard cash to credit/debit cards to wire transfers, or even with other cryptocurrencies, depending on who you are buying them from and where you live. It's still not easy to buy bitcoins with your credit card or PayPal. This is because such transactions can easily be reversed with a phone call to the card company. Since it's hard to prove any goods changed hands in a transfer of bitcoins, exchanges avoid this payment method and so do most private sellers.  BTC Good luck in the bitcoin world.