Thank you for all the replies and suggestions and now I realised there is just no simple answer to this question. My local bike shops have some significant markups on their bikes and I would feel bad to just use their services without intention of buying anything.
Many have suggested I will be window shopping at my local craigs list and will expand my search to include pretty much most bike types to see if I might find a good deal. My head is already spinning when I saw there are literally a thousand sales post and am kinda feeling more lost about which bike to get before I posted haha.
Right now I am googling every single bike name and comparing to their retail price, is there a better way? And how do I know if I'm overpaying for a vintage bike?