CAM program suggestions

[ekdenton]

I am building a dyi cnc and I am new to this. I am looking to use my machine for making signs, wood carving, and solid body elec. guitars. I only have a small CAD program at the time called designcad 3D. I may be getting Autocad  soon.
Artsoft suggests getting a full size CAM program besides Lazy Cam. Mastercam cost more than I want to spend. I looked at vcarve and it said it was easy to operate and it looke like it was a good program, I think it was around 500 bucks(that is within my budget).
Is that a good choice for what I am doing or is their other software that I should look at for the aplictions I will be my cnc for?

Suggetions please?
thanks