Maker Shed "Ultimate Micro-controller Pack". Good for beginner?

Hello everyone,

I'm new to the world of micro-controllers and programming. I was introduced to them, when I attended the DC science festival. I recently bought a Maker Shed Ultimate pack. A vender at the convention recommended it because of what you get for the price. But others that I have talked to said that you can get a lot more for less. I paid $150.00 without a book for the kit from Radio Shack. When I looked on Ebay and Amazon there are countless amount of kits that different company's have put together. My question to everyone is, does anyone know of a beginner kit for less then $150.00 w/ book? Just not sure if this Is a good buy to get a beginner started or a waste of money?

The general answer is - you bought the kit - use it!

Most of us here are not looking at this from a "total beginner" viewpoint (though some answer as educators) and favour choosing a basic board (Arduino Uno or Micro) plus a breadboard and jumper wires, and then selecting the ancillary devices for the projects they would actually fancy constructing. This will generally be cheaper, depending on the choice of quality parts.

The ultimate kit looks reasonable. Probably a bit overpriced, but it has some relatively expensive components (servo motors and LCD, for example. Yeah, you can get cheaper versions shipped direct from china in 3 weeks, but...)
While there is no book, there is the wiki page here: http://makezine.com/shed/ultimate-microcontroller-pack/
and the parts are common enough that you can probably use any number of other other online tutorials (adafruit, sparkfun, etc.)