[Brent Hutto]

If an electric guitar setup consists of adjusting neck relief, action, getting the intonation pretty close at the 1st and 12th frets and (at a stretch) lowering a couple of nut slots then that's something I can do myself just fine. I'd not pay someone to do those things.

If the nut slots are too low or some frets either need leveling or crowning then I'm not comfortable doing those things myself but it's a bit perplexing because that can easily cost more than the initial purchase price of an inexpensive guitar. Sure you're better off with a $200 guitar that's nice and playable rather than a $200 guitar that's hard to play. But spending another $200 to get it set up kind of ruins the idea of getting a cheap instrument!

With enough time and patience you could possibly shop around and find a guitar with an acceptable nut and fretwork for around $200. But odds are you'd have to try (or closely examine) a LOT of $200 guitars to find one that doesn't need work on the frets or nut.

For my part I just up my budget into the $300-$400 range which I think makes it a little easier to search out a playable electric guitar right off the shelf (give or take tweaking the easy "setup" stuff that can be adjusted with a slight turn of an allen wrench).

The real challenge from my perspective isn't so much coming up with $150 or so to pay someone to redo a nut or address minor fretwork issues. It's finding someone who can a) do a job worth paying $150-ish for and b) will do it in a reasonable time frame instead of wanting you drop the guitar off with a promise to "Try to get to it next week".