Or - build up that Raleigh. Ride it, Keep your eyes out for a better frame and swap the parts.

In 1976, I put a cog and lockring on a wheel and put it on the UO-8 beater I had been riding. Like you, fell in love the first ride. Rode that bike into the ground, every mile fixed. Replaced it with a nice Japanese built Schwinn. Kept riding it. Became a Sekine, then a Miyata, then a Trek, getting a little better at every step. Never put large sums of money into. Total (non consumables) expenses? $2000? Years? 40 Miles? ~80,000.

Things are getting more expensive now. A real expense ($500) was having the Trek seatstay caps repaired and the frame powdercoated. 30 year old frames have histories. If that frame was known for issues, I WILL see them. Early '80s Trek seatstay caps for example. Also my hometown of Portland now "gets" how valuable those old, horizontally dropped frames are. Not $25 any more. Still, not a whole lot of money for what I have gotten out of it.

(If you have a bike that works so you are not desperate, you have a far better chance of landing that 'find".)

Ben