Ooohhhh How Exciting ... Tho' I must add you will need to add to that windfall to achieve your machine.
Well your £500 would have got you a machine 10 months ago when I sold the original Elvis to justify part fund Elvistoo as that was the price I asked for .. and got without a smidge of hesitation from the buyer. It was tho' quite old and had the card reader BUT also a USB port! I priced it to sell and Whoosh off it went!
WHAT do you want to embroider???? Labels, cute motifs on clothes, in the hoop projects?
Whilst Fajita and I both bought the superest duperset V3 which has an ability to embroider up to 200 x 300 designs (or 8" x 12" in real money ) the hoop size I use the most is 7" x 5" .... unless Im embroidering multiple designs at once, labels, Needle cases etc ....(Oh Yes, Access All Accessories Swappers ... Your needlecases were triplets!!!)
To that end I would say the Brother 800e (£1300 new)i s a good machine to look at with an embroidery area of 160mm x 260mm which is 6" x 10" (I think)
I know this is way over your budget (at the moment) but the dealers very often have part exchanged machines that can be good value as they will (should have) been serviced and come with a guarantee
Dont be tempted to go for one that only embroiders 4" x 4" ... you will want a bigger area than that!
It took me ages to understand that if you have a machine with that embroidery area, you couldnt just stick a bigger hoop on it and embroider bigger!!
The maximum area your machine can embroider is the maximum area it will ever embroider!!
Keep us up to date with what you decide to do... which machine you go for .... Its a learning curve but you dont need to learn anything more complicated than how to download a bought design, thread your machine up and press some buttons!!!