To combat this I've adopted a two pronged strategy. Firstly, I look for clever ways to acheive reasonable painting results with minimal effort (using products like Army Painter's Quickshade for instance). Secondly, if possible, I buy pre-painted miniatures on eBay. However, whilst looking for figures on eBay, I often stumble across more than just piles of Warhammer regiments and WOTC D&D minis. For a start, there's plenty of Old School lead miniatures from the 1980s. Some of them are rare and expensive (Citadel AD&D, Grenadier Giants, etc.), but many are very reasonable. With a bit more searching, you can also find miniatures that are not strictly intended for gaming but can still be used to great effect.
A good example is the Lord of the Rings Cave Troll from the Eaglemoss Collector's Range (in the UK they sold these in newsagents for £5.99, for a pre-painted, 60-70mm tall lead figure and magazine). I think the Cave Troll must have been a special issue as he's 80mm tall. Anyway, these things often pop up on eBay and many of them only reach a pound or two:
Completed eBay Auction 1
Completed eBay Auction 2
After reading Carter's Rock Troll in The Lands of Ara Compendium , I immediately thought of this figure. Mine is shown below up against a small (soon to be even smaller) party of adventurers. The second picture shows the troll in close-up with an Asgard Dwarf to demonstrate scale.
