This house didn't have a built-in dishwasher when we bought it. The previous owners had a portable and they took it with them. It wasn't a dealbreaker to me and DH said we could always install one in the future. I didn't mind hand-washing the dishes until DD2 was born.
We used the free money from Best Buy (from my laptop order debacle) to buy a dishwasher. I don't know if anyone is familiar with Menards, but it's a home improvement store. They have mail-in rebates on stuff all.the.time. and we had enough in rebates to get the countertop and cabinet to encase the dishwasher. So far, we've only spent $25 out-of-pocket on this project. We knew we'd put one in before we tried to sell the house, so doing it for virtually nothing is awesome.
We began the install yesterday. The previous homeowners had their washer/dryer in the kitchen, so the hookups already exist. We just had to move them down closer to the floor. So today we're installing the cabinet and hopefully hooking the dishwasher up. We're setting the goal of having all done by Sunday, just in case something comes up that takes extra time.