You should buy the best multimeter you can afford. You will be using this meter for the rest of your career. Fluke is a good reliable brand, but I have had good success using B&K Precision multimeters. The B&K series is updated often, so a meter you purchase today may not be available in a year or two. That doesn't mean your meter becomes obsolete. B&K likes to use the most cost-effective technology currently available. Look at the B&K Model 393 as an alternative to the Fluke 117. You will learn to appreciate the extra digit of resolution and accuracy. Plan on spending about $200 for a good digital multimeter.
You should also consider purchasing an analog meter with a taut-wire D'Arsenval mirrored-scale meter movement and a DC sensitivity of at least 20,000 ohms/volt. Many techs and engineers think analog meters are obsolete, but you will find them very handy for looking at voltage trends from a distance. It is easy to watch a needle move across an analog meter face from a much greater distance than you can comfortably read a digital display. Unfortunately, high-quality analog meters are expensive, probably because the market for them is disappearing.
