What would you buy with a 50k budget?

A fellow pilot/friend and I have been knocking around the idea of
doing a 2-way partner****p on an aircraft next summer. I have had my
ticket since 1998 although I have only 150 some odd hours total. My
friend has about half that. Relatively speaking we still consider
ourselves newbie "students" but have this overwhelming desire to
become the best pilots possible and that requires lots of practice.

To that end we think that the best way is to have an aircraft that is
ready on a moments notice for us. We live in northern Florida and what
is particularly difficult for us as VFR only pilots is caused by the
whims of the weather. If we rent, we don't have the flexibility to
wake up one morning, see that it's not raining or threatening to and
be able to make the decision then and there to go flying. That's a
benefit we can't get from the flight school we normally rent from
which in in our recent experience has been in the Archer III. 

So we are going to be looking for a plane that will fit a 50k budget.
We know we can find a decent 150 or 152 for less than that, and have
talked about a two seater being adequate for us to gain experience and
build time. But we also have dreams of doing some cross country flying
like from JAX to the Keys or we have even dicussed how awesome it
would be to be able to fly to central Texas where we both have
relatives to visit. For that, I am thinking a 4-seater would be best,
and besides there might be some times when we want to go get that $100
burger with another friend or 2. I think we'd like to go for something
not any older than say 30 or 32 years..circa 1976 - 1978 or newer.

So we have begun our journey which will hopefully culminate next
summer with us being able to say we are aircraft owners. 

But to the question as indicated in the subject line. What would you
buy if all you had was 50k and what criteria would you apply to base
that decision? I know there will be many opinions and that's fine. It
will be interesting to see what we might be able to afford with that
budget. 

Thanks



Kirk Ellis
PPL-ASEL
kaellis@[EMAIL PROTECTED]