i recently downloaded and installed k2 on my joomla 2.5 website and i went to edit an item and insert a image gallery and the computer told me i need JoomlaWorks Simple Image Gallery Pro plugin. really!? is there not another way, i.e. free, of doing this or someother plugin that works just as well or something else i can do because making a free website is getting kinda expensive. thanks

There are workarounds for the sig free edition.
Take a look at the community.getk2.org archived forum and read all the posts of changes that were made to the free version to get it to work. I havent seen the same with 2.5 yet. You may manage it, but, the time saved is more than worth the price of pro for me.
There are many other galleries that you can get for free and insert with loadposition, but they wont be accessable thru the k2 item editor front or back end unless you write a plugin like the example plugin here to include them.