Hi Shelly, one of our members had her DH make her a set of plexiglass templates.
http://www.quiltingboard.com/posts/list/8109.page Here is the link to the ones he made for her, and of course they could be made about any size.
I made 17.5" blocks and I used my good old 6.5" X 24" template. Was it easy? no. Did I enjoy myself? no but I got the job done and did it well as my sashing lined up perfectly.
You price range should be big enough to find a good quality embroidery machine. I highly recommend going to the stores in your area (or the next town over), and sit with them (the embroidery machine that is), try them out. Talk to the sales people. The more stores you visit the more you will learn about what you need, what you don't and why. And if you find a sales person knowing less than you, talk to someone else and if that means going somewhere else, do so. It's to much money to spend without having the store that you can call if you run into trouble.