New d3000 owner needs photo editing software

Well I just bought my first SLR camera, the d3000. I kind of wish I could have found a d40 instead because I read it has alot less noise at higher iso settings but so far I love the camera. My main thing right now is, I am using a macbook and needing some software to edit photos. I am pretty new to all of this and have been doing alot of research. I really like the lightroom 3 beta I have been using but I am sure it will be around $300 when it finally comes out, so I am sure it's pretty much out of my budget. I want to stay under 200 bucks and have been looking into Photoshop Elements 8 and have downloaded the trial. It seems pretty complicated to be honest. I like how easy it was in lightroom to find the vibrance and clarity settings and such. PE8 seems to have a ton more features just will have a steep learning curve. Also was looking at Nikon Capture nx2 as I plan to shoot in raw and of course it is more expensive but I have read it handles RAW NEF images way better than PE8 does. What are your takes on these two choices? Should I bee looking at something else? I also plan to play around with doing HDR images as well.Really have no desire to use gimp seeing as how everyone says it has an even more steep learning curve and heard it was limited to 8-bit. Thanks for nay help!