I *think* you'd need to own / have access to the domain belonging to the email address you're looking at as well.. Which will evidently cost you something. I've never heard of email forwarding services that will let you pick your own 'non-existing' domain, and let it forward mails to, let's say, a hotmail/gmail account.

But hey, if you want to start a serious business, I think a domain of your own is an investment you pretty much can't do without. Domain name registration isn't that expensive anyway.

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d&b session 20090519
My take on... (various mixes planned, updated when I can be arsed)