Agree with Simon and suggest buying an amp with headphone socket plus aux input for playing along with stuff on mp3, CD or phone (YouTube) as this will help you learn whilst not annoying others in the immediate vicinity.

You could skip metronome of drum machine if playing along with songs you know or are trying to learn to begin with but keeping time is very important, so if you tend to speed up or slow down throughout a song, you may need to spend coin on a device to assist with learning how to keep time.

Music is both mechanical and fluid and for me it is more about feeling the music than being micro millisecond perfect with no feel or groove.