My first guitar was a yamaha guitar that I bought from the sears catalog with a crappy amp, but it was cheap ($200 or so) and it did the job. Mind you this was about 16 years ago. lol. I took lessons for about 2 months and dropped them, they weren't for me. I learned to read "guitar tabs" and that has helped me the most, and other than that I just bought a book that showed me the different chords and away I went. This stuff can all be found online now. There are people that give lessons on
www.youtube.com as well, just search for guitar lessons. Some are very good.