Using 2 different brands of interconnects?

"...I'm trying to minimize having to fiddle around by getting it right in the first place..."

The secret is to know what your system needs and buying the right cable to make your system sound the way you want it. Experience with a lot of cables helps but you can also get a consensus from the web or call the manufacturer for recommendations. 
Example: If your system is too bright, you probably don't want to add a silver, or other bright sounding cable. 

"...Surely a $60 cable is better than a two dollar one..."

Better in what way? Sound? Maybe, maybe not. 

OP,
Can you list what you have in your system?  Cable costs should scale with the system cost.

A 100$ interconnect may or may not be good enough depends on the existing components.

Just because a cable company makes a great speaker cable it does not mean that their IC's will be great, with cables it's trial and error.

The better your equipment the more you will be able to tell differences between cables. When people say that they cannot tell differences between cables it's most likely that their equipment is not good enough to show what the cable is capable of. The further up the latter you go the more important each item becomes in the audio chain.

If you have the patch cords that come in the box for free these are about as useless as the freebie rubber power cords and the twist ties and plastic bags they come in. I was in your position many years ago and wondering the same things and extremely skeptical too, but one listen to some $75 XLO and I was sold. The difference was night and day. I went in five minutes from thinking $75 was too much to realizing wire is equally as important a component as anything else. 

This is the right way to think of it. But first do what I did. Take your freebie crap patch cord to a store and compare. What you have is so bad anything will sound a lot better. Then once you know this much try and do the same thing with other interconnects. Every store is different, and the way you approach it matters too. But all the dealers I tried this with were good with it. One I even brought my CDP in to compare, another one I lugged my monster Dynaco ST400! This was all many years ago. You got to start somewhere! 

The advice to match to your components or spend proportionate is all baloney. What if your components are harsh and grainy and hyped on top? So you are gonna buy a syrupy smooth rolled off wire? That is not system matching, that is slapping a band aid on a wound that will never heal. Then when you upgrade the offending component(s) you wind up having to replace the syrupy smooth rolled off band aid. How smart was that? 

So buy whatever is the best you can afford, and do that by reading reviews or listening to it if you can. But seriously, reviews about how it sounds are all you need. That is all I have done for going on 20 years now. Works great. I never ever buy a band aid. I shun system matching.

I say BS to proportional spending too. Because if you find a really good interconnect, maybe it costs more than the amp or CDP it is connected to. But it elevates the sound of your system like you can't believe. Clearly then it is cost-effective. You are gonna not get it simply because some random audio poster said don't spend that much? Seriously? This advice is just not very well thought through, not at all. Get whatever sounds the very best you can afford, period. You will be amazed how well this works.