Mike,
Where in the country are you? There are a couple things I would like to mention.
1) Buy the hardwood that grows and is harvested in your area. I'm lucky living in a hardwood harvesting Mecca, but everywhere has something that is dominant. When I lived in Southwest Missouri, red oak was cheap as chips. Here in Northeast Ohio my "go to" has shifted to Sassafras. It's around $2 a bd. ft., handles exterior exposure well, has lower weight density than poplar but feels stronger, has a grain that passes for ash, and stains remarkably well. Outside this area, though, it seldom grows large enough to harvest. I get tickled about workbenches. Everyone wants a European Beech workbench. Germans started building benches from beech because it's cheap there, not because it is "perfect" for benches.
2) Dig deep. Don't buy hardwood from home centers, woodworking retailers (Woodcraft or Rockler) or your typical retail lumber yard. Find out where the pros buy hardwood. Here in NEO we have Keim, Hartville and Back to Nature. All cater to professional furniture and cabinet shops but are more than happy to deal with hobbyists.
To the point...for years (decades even) woodworking has not been about saving money. You can make "better", but you can't make it cheaper. Those days ended somewhere around the milleniurm or possibly a few years before. Sadly, you have to do it because you love it, not because you can save a buck...unless you're really comparing apples to apples.
