IR
Firstly you don't have to do a full flight test when your IR expires, you have up to 12 months from the date of experation to do a renewal.
You don't loose it when it expires. You still hold an instrument rating, it is just expired and you arn't allowed to fly IFR. Will still show up on your licence.
I am due to renew my MECIR and the cheapest way to do it is to find a flight school that allowes you to fly an ILS approach in a simulator and then fly a ndb in actual flight. Will only cost around a $1000 to do and it will cover you for NDB, VOR, ILS, LLZ, GPS.
Hope this helps.