Amateur Radio

It's up for you to decide. On U/VHF you can talk to other people directly (locally) like on HF. But you can also do things that HF can't provide, or provides with limitations, like talk through repeater (uncommon on HF), or to ISS, or through satellites (HF bounces from ionosphere) or do longer distance communications from mountaintops, or do image transmission or packet radio (HF has less bandwidth). On receive only you can also download NOAA weather satellite images, or whatever else data are emitted by them. You can make your own repeater from two baofengs. HF gets affected by space weather, U/VHF is not, and we're entering solar minimum. 6m will take you far further than 2m but it's usually bundled with HF radios

On higher end there's also moonbounce, but it's not in the budget category

e: there's 50 things you can do with SDR only (many on U/VHF) https://blinry.org/50-things-with-sdr/