I'd say the most economical option would be the Ninja Ultima Blender (BL810) when it goes on sale for $120-130. I've seen it at that price 5-6 times in the last year at different stores, for example Staples just had it on sale for $120. Just do a custom search on slick deals for 'Ninja Ultima' and sort by newest. I personally got this blender back in January for $120 and I've been using it nearly daily since then making berry/yogurt smoothies, tomato juice, and apple/carrot/kale slushies. It's probably not as good as the BlendTec or Vitamix blenders but it's 1/3rd to 1/5th the price (when on sale, which is often), and functions well enough to do most anything you'd typically do in a blender. It struggles with nut butters and flours (it can make these, it just takes more scraping and effort to get it to work), but seems perfectly adequate at making smoothies, juices and sauces.