If you know someone who plays, I would recommend biting the bullet and finding a decent one at a store that they can test for you (or ideally set up) even if it costs you another $30-50. Alternatively if you have a very reputable store that will help you and does professional setups. Sweetwater worst case.
When I first started playing I got the $79 kids special as you do and struggled terribly with it and quit playing for a long time. Terrible uneven frets, strings that hurt to fret properly, endless buzzing, never seemed to "get it" and kids music teachers are often baby sitters so "just keep trying you'll get it" never seemed to work out.
Years later I picked up guitar again by buying a new one as an adult. I found that cheap piece of junk after really getting a handle on guitar set up and construction and found it had a warped neck and cracked truss rod the factory had overtightened to try and get it straight. This made it actually impossible to fret certain notes and some slap dash grinding of some frets hadn't helped.
The moral of the story is that quality does matter. Doesn't mean you need to drop 5K on your first guitar, but it does mean some of those $99-$299 guitars are bad enough to be worth less than nothing, even if others are fine. It sucks to see people fighting garbage.
There are some great playing Squier or Yamaha or whatever guitars, but maybe only half of them and fewer still right out of the box.
