Dreamweaver...where have you been hiding?

Dreamweaver brought back some memories of last summer as I worked on a website project for the Web Design course. Hours upon hours spent developing that website through XHTML coding consumed a large portion of my free time. When I began the current project for this course with Dreamweaver, the ability to type in text and have it translated immediately into XHTML is a tremendous asset. I am not saying I would have used this as a tool for supplying me with proper coding in the Web Design course, but perhaps as a tool to check my work. I remember spending a week trying to solve an issue, which was remedied eventually by a small mistake (either a bracket or semicolon). Dreamweaver is a lovely tool and one that I may purchase for myself in the future. Are there other web authoring tools, which are more economical? If so, please share:)