Personally,if you are only an occasional baker or short on space, then I think you are much better off with a good quality hand mixer (ie Kenwood Kmix or Kitchenaid) than a cheap stand mixer. A good hand mixer will be more than capable of producing decent sponges, meringues, bread doughs, icing etc, it just can't deal with larger capacity baking. So, if you are thinking about cakes of the size of an 8" Victoria sponge or 6-egg white pavlova, invest in a decent hand mixer and some cheap mixing bowls and you'll be sorted.