You need to decide if this is going to be your sewing machine for a long time or if you will want to upgrade regularly. I spent a lot of money on my machine but I have been using it for 10 or 12 years and will probably use it for 10 more or longer. If I amortize it over the years, it was pretty cheap per year. It's worth spending more money to get more machine or a better quality machine if you think it will be enough for a long time to come.