Wing Fat

I am looking for a GPS for real-world flying that will interface with FSX via FSUIPC. I have been looking at the Aera 500 because it's inexpensive (one of these new costs less than what a 296 is selling for used on eBay). I have read in another thread that hooking up the Aera 500 to a PC for the purposes of FSX requires buying a bare-wire cable and soldering it to a serial adapter. I assume you then plug a serial-to-USB adapter into that and then plug it into your computer (my computer does not have a serial port). Is this the only solution? I haven't soldered anything since high school. Garmin sells a USB cable for the Aera 500 for about $15. Will this not work? If not, are there any third-party cable options?