[ohenry]

Getting your print to match what you see on your monitor is one of the more difficult things to accomplish. First, you'll never get it to match perfectly for a variety of reasons, mainly centered around the differences between the light source of monitor and print. Beyond that, you need several elements in your workflow to get a reasonably close output match. First, you need to calibrate your monitor to a known standard using hardware calibration tools. Next, you need software that is capable of utilizing and understanding color management. And finally, you need to have a profile for every printer/paper combination you're printing on.

Spyder, until the recent version, has never received particularly favorable reviews when compared to other tools. For the pricepoint you've given, you're pretty much limited to a stripped down version of Spyder 3, an older version of Spyder, or Pantone's Huey. I've read good reports from Huey users, but have no personal knowledge of them. I used to use a Spyder 2 and was never happy with it. I use a Monaco Optix XR (no longer readily available), custom profiles for all of my papers and my printer, and my workflow centers around Adobe CS3 and/or Lightroom.

Regardless of what system you go with, if you're not using software that supports color management, it's a crap-shoot anyway.