I'm what one might call a dollar store filmmaker. Because of my rather poor college student budget for equipment, I purchased a couple of mics from a dollar store with 1/8" plugs on the end and then slapped on a 1/8" to 3.5 mm adapter so I could plug it into my camera.

The mics, while not fantastic, do a pretty good job. My problem is that because they are plastic-body mics, I pick up a lot of rustling if something barely touches them. Is there a way to prevent them from rustling quite so much, like padding them or anything? Also, I'm in need of a good way to screen them from wind-noise since I live in Kansas. Any suggestions? Keep in mind I'm on a *very* limited budget.

get a microphone wind screen/ wind jammer. I know radio shack sells some for cheap, or if you're REALLY cheap, try using a sock - although I'm not too sure how well that would work.

Oh no! I'd STRONGLY recommend against using cheap mics. It sounds just like what happened to me, picking up the rustling and stuff. I bet they're going to end up giving you an appalling signal to noise ratio when you seriously use them. Mine needed to be about 20 inches away from my actor's mouths at the most to pick up decent sound. It was a nightmare. Test them really well first.

I've always been against cheap mics, but because of my non-existent budget, I have to take what I can get. They pick me up pretty well from a distance and I plan to use a multiple mic set-up. What kind of "stress tests" (if you will) could I put them through to really test them?

Just try to simulate your actual expected conditions (ambient noise / distance from actors / speaking volume) and then edit the footage a little bit and make sure you're happy with the sound playing back on the TV. Mine were WAY too quiet, and when I pumped it up the background noise was like a tornado. Good luck!

firstly, cheap mics are crap, secondly your problem sounds like it is one even the best mics have, and that is handling noise. to fix this it is as simple as a shockmount.

the windnoise, as said early can be stoped with a windscreen or windjammer.