It will give you a lifetime of beautiful straight stitches for very little cost, depending on what you pay for the machine. Even if you pay $300, which is the high end of what you can reasonably find a great condition one for, you won't have annual maintenance costs or spendy repairs to make. It doesn't take much to learn to service them yourself, parts are plentiful and inexpensive, and it won't go belly up on you like a modern machine. Plus it's portable. I paid $225 for one from Craigslist a couple weeks ago. Its in really great shape. Finish is still lovely, all attachments, in good working order with a near perfect case. I'm 28 so I figure we have 40 or 50 years left to sew together. I'm sure the computerized machine I just bought won't last even half of that, and it will require servicing that I can't do myself.