The big value of a sim is that it teaches you orientation and you can practice maneuvers over and over and get the muscle memory going. The negative is that it can't produce random turbulence in the wind that you will always have in real life, and every model on the sim is balanced and trimmed perfectly. If you get too used to how to plane flies on the sim, your trainer will react differently and mess you up. Flying a variety of planes on the sim is smart so that you don't get too dialed in to one. You should go ahead and contact your local club and see if an instructor will take you up on a club trainer to start learning with the real thing. It's nice to be able to take the maneuvers you learn with the instructor and then work on them on the sim. The vast majority of clubs provide instruction for free, although some require that you join first. Those club dues will pay for themselves many times over in saved equipment and help from more experienced pilots.