your best bet is to just hang tight and keep your eye in the for sale section on here they have really good deals all the time , probably could pick up a good used jlt , c&l , ect for 80-100 bucks then get the tuner from bbr , livernois , ect.
the tuner will be a great investment believe me i can't name a single person who stuck with just a intake ...... this can also be used to adjust tire height , gear swaps , ect. so don't think of it as 300 extra for the intake to work
imo a tuner/programmer is like a crescent wrench it can be used for multiple things varying from a wrench , to a specialty tool for rounding points on bolts , to a hammer lmao