Guys, we're getting back to projecting our standards on the OP. We don't know anything about the condition of his wallet or his true needs.

In my case, my wallet is always fairly flat. I started off in his position, and discovered that I could never get quite the picture I wanted in museums, because the aisles weren't wide enough, so I ended up buying a Sigma 10mm-20mm lens from someone on eBay with the snazzy slogan "when you can't back up any more" ... his slogan exactly matched my particular need, his price matched what I was able to scrape up, and my next visit to the Henry Ford Museum yielded the picture I hadn't gotten before.

Later, I felt a need to get more telephoto. I had an old 70mm-300mm lens from my film camera days, but I didn't want to lug too much weight on bird-watching walks with my wife, so I went through the same process and ended up with a Tamron 18mm-270mm.

That was my wallet and my needs. Your mileage may differ ... in fact, I'm thinking that almost every person will approach situations a little differently, so we need to be careful about posts that basically say "that is simply not a good solution" or "this is the only viable solution".