We recently bought a new house and got new carpets installed before moving in. It has only been a little over a month since we moved, so we don't have experience with stains *yet*, but we got a 5 star rated, stain resistant carpet, which was the highest quality available. From what we were told, anything that spills on the carpet will stay at the surface and not soak in. We were told stains clean easily. We did get a light color because it makes the house look more spacious, but we don't have young kids or dogs in the house, so there's no one around who could easily ruin it.
You mentioned hardwood floors being too expensive. We got tiles in our family room and kitchen, and personally, I just *love* it. I actually wish we got tiles everywhere downstairs. Its incredibly easy to clean and take care of, looks beautiful, and it was much cheaper than hardwood floors too. We had hardwood floors in our previous house and weren't even going to consider it. I really dislike hardwood floors. They're hard to take care of, and the one we had got scratched VERY easily. Its color also seemed to fade with time. Maybe it wasn't a good quality hardwood, but we had a bad experience with it and didn't want hardwood floors in our new house, nor did we want vinyl. The tiles looks great, and so far, so good. The only thing is they will probably tend to get cold during the winter. It isn't a huge problem for us because it doesn't get too cold here, but it might be something to think about if it gets really cold where you live. It should be fine with the heater though. If you want to consider tiles, I could show you a picture of our's so you could see how it looks. I would recommend it over carpet for older animals, because no matter how good the carpet, personally, I wouldn't want any accidents on it. We don't even wear shoes in our carpetted areas so I guess I'm a bit paranoid about getting the carpet dirty.
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