How times change -- apparently there's a 100% FREE SSL certificate option called "Let's Encrypt".
It's literally a one-click affair on my current webserver software. So I'm going to go with it.
The downside, it's only good for 3 months at a time. But then I just click the button again!
But here's the thing -- you can only install SSL certs for 13 months at a go, now. It's a real pain to have to paste in all the certificates and what not. ONCE A YEAR.
Talk about a pain.
So unless this budget SSL causes any problems (which you would see as "This site is not trusted", "Warning!", etc.) I think I'm going to switch to the free option.