I bought a Singer Futura CE250 2 years ago online. It was $550 including shipping, 3 software programs. It does fine on the basics, I have a 4X4 and 4X6 hoop. I am pretty happy with it but there are a number of bells and whistles that I wish it had. It is a great starter machine, but I kind of wished I would have waited and saved to get a used/reconditioned machine from a local dealer. Buying online you do not get any classes and these singer's do not have a very good manual for the embroidery module. I also thought that I would only want to do a few things with it, but once I started doing projects with it, it is like anything else, you want to be able to do more with it :wink: