Ok, most of my adult life, I have had a dishwater blonde hair with some red to it. I have ALWAYS had my hair highlighted. Which I usually did myself. It looked very natural and pretty. My hair was quite short. Well... I decided to grow my hair out. Of course, the highlighting needed to be done, so I did it and it turned out orange.(Im not sure why) So I decided to just totally color my hair blonde and it covered it some, but not completely. ( So my hair was a lovely pumpkin color but just on top) So I haven't put any color on my hair in months and have about 5" of new growth that is the ugly dishwater blonde/brown/red with the balance of my hair being bleached blond about down past my shoulders. And of course the undergrowth is all dark also. I want to get it back or close to it's original color and then highlight it at a later date. What's a girl to do. The salons want hundreds. Is there anyone out there, that can guide me through this so I don't end up with green hair??
Please!!

Your hair may have turned orange because you need not leave the bleach (from the highlighting kit) on long enough. Whilst you still have the bleach on, your hair goes through different colour stage. This is normal. The bleach is stripping out colours from the hair one by one. Hair colour is built in layers. It starts with the darkest. So for an example I have black hair. When I apply bleach, it will first strip out the black, then the underlying colours. The next colour that will be stripped out is brown, then goes to a reddish colour, then orange, then dark blonde and so on. And because your hair is now long, you might have not applied the bleach correctly and long enough. (Sorry about all that, just thought it's vital info for when you next colour your hair :D)

You will need to see a professional but as you say they are asking for a lot of money, try going to a local hairdressing college. It's quite cheap and they know what they're doing. If they weren't capable the teachers would not let them do it.