Honestly at that budget, you are probably better off buying a good home theatre in a box (HTIAB) rather than trying to get into independent stuff. HTIAB absolutely blows for music but can be decent for home theatre as the sounds are all in shorter bursts which makes it less easy to observe how shitty it sounds.
If you wanted to do something that was much more musical but didn't blow for HT, I would recommend a pair of floorstanding speakers (they provide much more bass than a bookshelf due to the increased cabinet size and capability to house larger drivers), skip the sub, and buy a decent receiver to power it.
There are lots of deals on decent used floor standing speakers on
Canuck Audio Mart or Craigslist as a lot of peoples' wives, etc have people move to bookshelves or smaller solutions. The trick is to buy a used HIGH QUALITY product rather than a new shitty one.
Mark