Buying first pair of skis - please help! Advice on skins too.

Hi,

I am about to buy a pair of skis for my first season. I don't have a huge budget, but would like to be able to tour and do normal downhill skiing. I think the ideal thing would be to buy a pair of normal downhill skis, then fix touring bindings onto them and use them for all terrain. The only problem with this (besides compromise on downhill skiing/binding rigidity) is that buying everything separately is incredibly expensive.

My recent dilemma is that I am thinking about buying a fairly average pair of touring skis with skins and bindings, even though they are slightly too tall for me and are not fantastically advanced. My thought process is that I can use these to start off with, and then if I find a good pair of downhill skis whilst I'm there I can take the bindings off the old skis and reuse them.

Does anyone know if I can also reuse the skins?? I know they are tailored to fit the ski, but if the old skis are bigger, then would it be possible just to trim them down a bit?

In that case, I think it would be worth buying the touring skis.

I would be so grateful if someone could help me with my endless list of questions!

Thanks,

Sophie