Well, it's probably a bit beyond the price you were considering but within a week I plan to purchase a VacMaster VP215C chamber vacuum sealer! Presently I'm using a unit produced/branded for Sous Vide Supreme. It's okay but probably a bit overpriced.

My brother has a Rival vacuum sealer and it's not a bad basic unit. Wal-Mart sells them for $50 and occasionally Woot.com has them for $20. The issue with clamp type sealers is that they require special bags that are somewhat expensive. I buy these Weston bags from Amazon for about $.20-$.42 apiece, and that's about as good a deal as I've found. While a chamber sealer is much more expensive the bags are only a few pennies each.

At any rate, both the Rival and SVS machines have been used to good effect sealing bandages, fatwood, matches, tinder cubes etc as well as food items. I also do a lot of sous vide cooking in vacuum bags.