@missioncoonery, I see nobody has directly answered your question.
Spend most of your budget on the table. Then buy a good arm and lastly the cartridge.
Why so much money on the table? OK consider this: lets find hypothetically a vinyl record with a 10000Hz sine wave and you pop this on the turntable and give it a spin. At 10KHz the stylus has to change direction 20000 times! Easy Peasey.
Now play some music with drums, piano and bass and try and imagine the antics the stylus has to perform to transduce this torture test. Any play in the bearing will mean important music info lost.
Likewise with the arm, any play anywhere and more damage done. The cartridge, even a fairly modest one mounted on a great table with a great arm will now perform to it's optimum.
Perhaps apportion your budget as follows:
Table 60%, Arm 30% and Cartridge 10%
Also do not have the table set up in or near a room corner, that's where bass hangs out. Play repetitive bass beats and walk around your room where you have the components and find a quiet spot and position the table there. Remember the table needs an isolation shelf or some means of reducing vibration.
Once you have decent sound which you now should have you can then hunt for a better cartridge knowing you will enjoy it performing as intended.