If you've never had a serger before, definitely get it from a dealer where you can get lessons. Besides showing you how to thread it, they can show you how to do all sorts of things with it that you would never think of yourself. I have the Babylock with the jet-threading feature and love it, love it, love it. Traded in my old one specifically to get the self-threading and it was worth it, along with self-adjusting tension (tension can be a real problem, almost as problematic as threading!). That said, they are expensive (paid over $1500 for mine with the trade-in about 5 years ago) so if you don't think you'll use it a lot, it may not be worth the extra expense to get the self-threader and you can get a perfectly good serger without all the bells and whistles for a couple hundred dollars. Good luck.