Maybe I need to fly with glasses, but I usually don't see a windsock until it's too late. And they need to mounted perfectly vertically, or they'll "lie" to us in light wind situations.
For our purposes, I think streamers work just as well. Those are usually made from a roll of pink or orange construction tape from the hardware store. They still need to mounted onto a stick of some kind. And that can probably be improvised for not a lot of money, maybe something like
http://www.homedepot.com/p/Blazer-Inter ... qIEGBydNGE.
Even better than a streamer, in my opinion, is a whirly, ziggy-zaggy kind thing you'd buy from the beach kite shop to decorate your front lawn on a breezy day. I think Valerie had one of those up the last I landed at Woodstock, and even I saw it.