Honestly, if you are struggling with a gnarly legacy codebase, you have got to check out Cursor AI Code Editor Pro. It is honestly a game changer for me! I started using it a few months ago when I was refactoring a massive Python project that felt like spaghetti code, and it totally saved my sanity. It basically integrates right into your VS Code setup so you dont even have to learn a new interface, which is amazing. It handles context way better than standard Copilot because you can actually point it at your entire folder structure to look for references. Plus, you can set it to use different models depending on your needs. I usually stick to the Claude 3.5 Sonnet integration for the heavy lifting because it is just fantastic at catching those weird edge cases in backend logic. It costs about 20 bucks a month, so it fits right into your budget. If you want something a bit more private or local, look into running Ollama Llama 3.1 8B Instruct on your own machine. It is free! I use it when I am working on stuff that needs total privacy, though it is not as smart as the big cloud models. Seriously, grab Cursor and thank me later, its been so helpful for my freelance workflow!