Hi Zebzeb,
Now that Black Friday and Cyber Monday is over, a lot of the biggest deals have passed. Groupon has a laptop on sale right now for $249.99. I also provided a viable option from Amazon that match your price range. The one that I provided has the best battery life and screen size of all of Amazon's selection.
If you would like to do your own research the following points are important:
Wireless: 801.11 b/g/n -- Do not worry about ac
CPU: Dual or Quad core processors
Hard Drive: 500 gigabytes minimum
Operating System: Windows 7 or Windows 8.1
All of the other options will be irrelevant for what you are looking for.
Groupon:
http/www.groupon.com/deals/gg-asus-156-windows-8-laptop-with-intel-celeron
Amazon:
http/www.amazon.com/Acer-Aspire-ES1-512-C88M-15-6-Inch-Diamond/dp/B00MNOPS1W/ref=sr_1_2?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1418367764&sr=1-2&keywords=laptop
Good luck with your search! Also, refurbished is a great way to save money. Nearly everything I own is refurbished.
Yimman