What's the best pick for my first welder?

Like the title says, I'm new to welding and gonna need to get A LOT of practice in before I do any autobody work, so I'll be looking for a welder soon. I did a little research, and got the impression that:

• MIG and TIG are the most widely used, but TIG is supposed to be more difficult
• MIG boils down to gas and gasless(flux-core wire) systems
• Gas MIG is the go-to for doing sheet metal and autobody, and flux-core just burns right thru or warps the metal
• Flux core works better in outdoors or windy environments, on jobs that don't involve thin metal

The problem with the gas systems is they're so spendy. Does anybody know of a decent gas MIG that isn't gonna cost me more than my car?