Dell XPS L521X, windows 8.1 downgrade troubles

Hello, my name is Bill. I've been watching your YouTube videos for quite some time now. I finally became a part of your forum because I have a issue that I was hoping one of you might be able to help me with. If you feel like being an overachiever maybe you could do a video on it... I bought a Dell XPS L521X refurbished from dells website about a year and a half ago. Great laptop, except for the fact that it came with windows 8. Now windows 8.1. I've scouring the internet looking for a way to downgrade to windows 7 or dual boot it with Ubuntu atleast. It seems like everybody is having my same issue. the laptop does not want to boot from a USB, and I'm to cheap to buy a a disk to do it with. I've changed settings in bios to no avail... So I'm hoping that you might be able to help. I hate to say it but I have already become accustomed to windows 8.1. So my main concern would be dual booting to Ubuntu... Thank you for your time and help.. The laptops specs is the core i5 3220m model with the nvidia gt630m and 6 gigs of ram. Very nice website by the way.

Windows 8.1 is fine. Just download StartIsBack and it is basically like Windows 7 just better. 

As for not wanting to boot off of USB what do you mean? Is there an error? Or no way to access a boot menu?