Thanks for the advice. I'm far from being a good guitarist but I've been playing for over 15 years now so thankfully I've managed to learn a thing or two about at least the minor improvements that can change a lot of things, so I've adjusted the action myself as well as any problematic fret (thankfully there weren't too many - it's easy to overdo any adjustment when it compounds..)
In the case of this guitar though, it was really the cheapest thing out there because I am on a budget (and a really tight one), so any real work done on it would cost more than a few times the guitar itself and more than I can afford to dedicate to it. My actual guitars are an ocean away for the time being, but I'll still get them back eventually. In the meantime I have a nice decorative thingy I can pick up sometimes, and I try to remind myself that now that I'm "more experienced" I should take this as a challenge rather than an excuse.
Or if you're really dedicated to saving money, you can always pick up the almost entirely separate hobby of doing guitar setups yourself, but that's probably not worth it at your current stage, based on how you've described yourself.