1990 Toyota Corolla Car sputtering and stalling

On Friday I drove the car. It was raining heavily. Car was running fine, but almost out of fuel. I stopped at a service station and filled up.

About 5 kilometres later the car started to sputter and almost stall. For the rest of the drive home it would sputter every so often, especially losing power when accelerating.

I don't know much about cars, but thought maybe it had got a little water in the tank when I was filling it up, or possibly because the tank ran very low it sucked up some junk into the fuel line.

I had hoped it might just clear itself out. I took it for a run around the block yesterday, and it seemed about the same.

Today I had a lot of trouble starting it, and if took my foot off the accelerator it stalled every time.

Any thoughts about what the problem might be? And possible remedies?

Money's pretty tight at the moment, so I'd rather not have the expense of taking it to a mechanic unless I really have to.