If you're going to jump in, you might want to consider Fusion 360. The hobbyist license is "free forever" (or until Autodesk changes their minds) with yearly renewals.
The integrated CAM in Fusion is quite strong, and the hierarchical modeling is pretty good.
It's a little weak in some areas (no "bolted connection," NPT threads only available in some hole modes, etc) but generally it's quite good!