You might be tempted to buy a cheap, bottom-of-the-line machine. Don't! You get what you pay for. And.what you pay for is endless frustration when the machine doesn't work the way it's supposed to.
My mother hated to sew, but up until the 1970s, housewives were expected to sew house dresses and kid's clothes and the like. So she bought the cheapest machine she could find and fought with it constantly. It wouldn't hold tension, it kept breaking needles, and the bobbin thread constantly snarled. (In hindsight it was probably desperately in need of servicing, because all of that sounds like a timing problem.) Regardless, it was not the kind of machine to encourage anyone to enjoy sewing or quilting.
I'd take Mengler's advice and look for a good used machine.