The set-up goes a little something like this:

My team and I were one a mission to hunt down a Toxic Shaman for a friend of the team. Not getting into the specifics of it, we ended up with a good hunk of nuyen and about 8 karma each. Now, my GM let me know that this mission qualified as an ordeal, which I thought was great. But then I read the rules of the Deed ordeal: you have to give up the karma you received for the deed itself. Now, I'm not an initiate yet, so the karma cost looks something like this: for Initiate Grade 1 without an ordeal or a group, it's 18 karma, for Initiate Grade 1 with an ordeal but not a group, it's 15 karma.

Am I reading it right that I'd have to give up the 8 karma I got on the mission to save me 3 karma for performing an ordeal?

you read right.

now if you were saving 10-12 points, it would be worth it!

At the lower grades, I'd suggest Astral Questing. You have a minimum of 15 metaplanes you can get access to, and it's unlikely you'll have trouble getting to all but maybe two of those.

Personally, I occaissonally my players (back when I had players) went through ordeals suggested by their Avatar (read: me).

Initiation is an excellent chance for roleplaying. I recently had one of my characters do the Meditation Ordeal (Mental vs Physical attributes.)

It is probably the easiest of them all, but if you twist things, and give the PC's visions or puzzles or something as they move through the ordeal, it makes for more interesting play.

I'm remembering how long we debated and negotiated within our brand-new magical group, trying to find an oath that all of us were willing to be bound by ... the team as a whole ended up gaining so much team karma out of that oath (SR2 rules).