You can live without having ABS, of course. My 2 cars don't have them. You just need to make sure that your brakes are checked thoroughly. Brake pads are changed often etc. etc. to have optimum braking performance.

Personally, I would pick the 1.3J over the 1.3E for the reasons stated by GTi.

Sub-700k for a mid-variant vehicle isn't simply worth it.

The 1.3J as itself, is already practical. Especially if you just need a car to bring you from point a to point b without stalling in the trip's duration.