Business cards
If you are in job search mode, never seize to carry a bunch of business cards in your purse, inside your sleeves or in your bra.

Why do it?
This may happen anywhere – in the mall, at the children B-day party, at the gas station, in the waiting area at the dental office, even at official job-search networking event or career fair.
You may bump into someone you kind of knew in your “other” life – life of career person. Or you may meet someone new but interested in talking to you. So, you make a small talk followed by your 1 ½ -minute job-search-related drill (elevator speech, a they call it) and then what? They remember your name and call you when something comes up? Or you prefer to rely on scratching your name and e-mail on this yellow sticky note or rather on this envelope you’ve got in the mail few months ago with your bank statement and just never got to recycling it?
Remember – you are a professional, don’t be sloppy in small things. This is something you can afford at low cost.

Logistics
If you are lucky to have a permanent employer or even some on-and-off part-time / contractual employer who won't mind supplying you with business cards - use those, these are the best kind. If you are independent self-employed professional (never say "unemployed", this scares people away) or "employed" by a registered company that exists on paper and may even has a web page - you ought to take care of your business cards yourself.

There are many way to get business cards cheap if not for just cost of shipping / printing.
If you have access to a color printer, you can purchase blank business cards and print them yourself. Or you can use professional printing services, for example VistaPrint.

Find more info on SmallBizManager.