Another point that i missed, was if you're gonna spent most of your money of a beuty of a guitar, you'r only going to have enough to buy the most apauling sounding amp!!! So you'll have a nice guitar, which will sound not up to standard cos of the amp!
My first guitar was very cheap, and to honest playing it now it's not a bad as i remember, I mean the pick ups are... welll... just not very good, but now that I've got a nice amp it sounds OK... Although I did get my guitar at a huge dicount (about £30 ($43.5) as it had been in the shop and now one was interested, and I didn't have enough to pay what's on the tag, so the nice shop owner dicided to cut his losses and sell.. saying that I think he still managed to make a little money from it...), so it was a bargain...
If you spend $150 on a guitar you'll be able to get a great sounding amp for $200 -$300, and you'll sound great...
In the mean time borrow a guitar and learn a couple of chords, just so you can play something in the shops...