I started my quilting journey with a Basic mechanical Brother machine from Costco about 20 years ago. I still have that machine and it works perfectly. I made a king size quilt on it, Quilted it with a straight stitch. Then I learned to Free Motion Quilt on that machine with smaller quilts. It worked just find. Since then I got another small Brother that is electronic I think, because it can do an alphabet in addition to the stitches. That works just fine. Then I graduated to a Brother PQ1500 for piecing and FMQ and that is my favorite machine. I collect vintage Singers and they work too but I am very pleased with my Brother machines.
I started quilting with a mat, rotary cutter and ruler. I already had a scissors and pins. I could probably survive with just that now, but, I love gizmos and they are in my budget.