cant afford to let go of what specifically? the chassis? the engine? the features? interior? or can't afford the cost of trading it for a pre-face?
depends on how serious and thorough ya wanna go?
from what i gather, the facelift has different bonnets, headlights, back lights, boot, bumpers, aerials, dash, loom, ventilation, gear selector linkages, rear engine mount, ign system, engine head & cover, maybe fly & transmission? electronic speedo & instruments, interior
if you wanna go the whole hog and spend all that time, effort & money either:
A - buying bits of pre-face seperately to swap into the facelift chassis?
B - buying a whole pre-face micra to swap everything over?
unless the facelift chassis is immaculate and the optional features (PAS, elec windows, level headlights) from the pre-face best suits ur needs, imho I'd just buy a good condition pre-face (maybe of similar colour or spec if thats what ur after) to save the hassle and cost.
dunno if insurance or dvla thinks a post 98 k11 fitted entirely with pre-98 bits counts as modified?