My roommate's boss has an older 3-series (early 90s i think) that he was looking to sell for around 5k (but he can't anymore, because someone wanted just the head and...he sold them just the head....now the car doesn't go much of anywhere)... But anyway my point was it's not really that expensive to get one.

As for insurance, my fiance traded up from an '02 suzuki aerio to an '01 audi a4. His insurance went up by 11 bucks every 6 months. So its not a huge difference.