Second: teaching afternoon classes at school (for free) and begging parents for money for small electronics projects.

The second reason makes the low cost approach obvious.

Q: why did you confuse the issue with the "I am just a labrat?"

Go NXP P89LPC9xx, you get what you want (and a ton of bells and whistles) if you choose e.g. the P89LPC935 which sell for less than $3 in singles.

OK, that put you at 3v3, but have a look.

If the budget is a bit better try the SILabs USB stick (~$18 if I recall), it comes with a full ICE. Even better use one of the SILabs devboards ~$66 -up again with a full ICE. Re USB sticks, I believe that a lot of companies have them, if interested, say so and whoever knows of them will post. I, however would stick with the SILabs, only because of the full ICE

Erik