Or you could just go with 29doors.com and get a semi-custom site with customized colors, fonts, and layout. U.S. based, easy to talk to on the phone, and very available around the clock.

I tend to negotiate at ~$400.00, but that typically involves writing a custom child theme and plugins. Although i've done it for "whatever you can afford" for friends.

If I have a friend that can't pay what I find it worth, I usually just do it for free. As soon as someone pulls out their wallet, expectations go way up. Another good tactic I've heard is to put the value price (what you'd charge someone legit) and then discount it to their price, but show it all. Then they value it what it should be.

I'm surprised you can charge big bucks for a WordPress blog. I guess it's a big-name brand these days.

People build a lot more than blogs with it now. It goes head to head with just about any CMS now, and dominates the broader CMS market. That said, it's just now being included in more enterprise and government style projects.