I would recommend looking at a ZTR, they are coming on strong now, and there are some good ones for around the $4000 range. In the $3000 range, you just get consumer quality and they don't last. For that much ground, look at a commercial grade. Do a search and look at all that has been discussed in the past year on this topic.

Buddy - Sounds like you're on the right track, but also do some more checking with your local dealers vs. the big box stores. Slammer may have had you personally in mind when he wrote this: Repost of Slammer's Rules... 1. Carefully evaluate the size mower you need and buy at least one size larger. 2. NEVER buy a mower from ANYPLACE that will not let you test drive it or at least a similar model. Ergonomics are just as important as performance and capability. (Vitally important!) 3. DO NOT base your purchase on price or brand name alone! Do proper research and find all of the available models that fit your criteria and haggle, save, or trade to get the right equipment for the job. Do not compromise! If you follow these three tips you will end up a happy camper with just the right unit for the job. If you disregard this advice your gonna end up with One or the other of the following problems: A. Buyers remorse. Stuck with a piece of junk or simply a unit inadequate for the task at hand. Or.. B. A teed off spouse when you start shopping for another tractor just 3 - 6 months down the road because you didn't buy the right unit in the first place. Now go forth and shop and try and have fun!

marineguy, bhshaman, It sounds like you guys have it pretty well figured out. My wife and I are expecting our first! Maybe things will change once the baby arrives but the way it's looking now it's going to be a footrace though to see who gets to spend more time at home with our child. She's a busy vet and of course I'm a doc, both professions with type A personalities galore but I guess we both feel like some things are more important than money or professional prestige. I wouldn't care if someone were to call me a "househusband". People on their death bed never say "I wish I spent more time at work." Don't get me wrong, we're not exactly slackers but the organization I work for asked me to head up a new clinic. I really had to think twice before taking it on. As I said in a previous post, our newest vehicle is Jenn's '01 Camry. We can bicycle to work so we don't put on many miles. We live in an established neighborhood near the university in our town. Many of my colleagues have opted for swanky new houses. As far as I can see all it's done for them is smaller lots and more restrictive covenants. We're lucky 'cause we have 3 non-taxable retirement vehicles. One that is paid for entirely by my organization, one that is matching and one that isn't matched but is also pretax. I also have some money in a Canadian governmental hospital workers retirement fund that not only grows with interest (guaranteed a minimum of 10%) but is also indexed to inflation. (If you live in Canada it is very advantageous to be firmly attached to the gov't teat. My sister for instance who is an ICU nurse and clinical instructor has received 1 year of 70% pay for each of her maternity leaves.) Two of our vehicles were bought new, one used but we plan on driving them 'til the wheels fall off. I agree with marineguy that it's often not worth it to pay cash for a vehicle. All our vehicles are paid for but if I was in need I would just wait for one of the no interst for 5 yr specials and leave my money in some interest bearing investment.

gmiller, The only advantages to buying a new lawn mower are 1) the warranty, and 2) the ability to buy something that suits your needs with absolutely no requirement to self-educate or search beyond your local dealership. The disadvantage: you'll spend 2-3 times as much (which, based on your needs, will probably equate to $3,000-5,000. But in all likelihood you'll just downgrade, and settle for a $3,000 lawn mower when you could have bought a $7,000 lightly used garden tractor for less than half its retail value. That Ingersoll is a nice tractor but it might be a bit more than you need, and it's in Massachusetts. I'm partial to Deere garden tractors, just because they're well built, and there are so many out there it's fairly easy to find replacement parts and attachments on eBay. I wrote a used GT buyer's guide and posted it on eBay. It is the research consolidation of my own quest to buy a garden tractor a few years back. I don't know what part of PA you're in, but you'll probably want both a snowplow (aka: blade) and a blower. My dad's in the Poconos, and in the winter he has his Deere 265 mounted with his 48" blade, and a GT262 set up with a 42" blower and Femco cab enclosure. The blade gets a lot more use. The blower really shines on those rare 2-3' late winter storms, but the blade is the weapon of choice for sleet, or wet accumulations of 6" or less. Personally, I found a GT225 with a 42C deck, 7 bushel collection system, and a 10 cu ft steel cart for $2,000, in just about pristine condition. I went with the garden tractor just because I didn't want to worry about overworking the transmission while hauling cartloads of firewood or topsoil around my yard. The tiller is a $1400 attachment, so I never planned to buy one from Deere, but I ended up finding one dirt cheap. Since the purchase of the tractor coincided with the purchase of my new home, it just so happened I had a lot of landscaping to do. The tiller was invaluable in that function. It was enjoyable, rather than back-breaking work as I carved out massive perennial beds around the house and oak trees. As the years rolled on I also bought a front blade (just for grading sand, and because it was cheap on eBay), a sleeve hitch with a Brinly plow, disc cultivator, and back blade, a Brinly broadcast spreader, a Brinly plug aerator (which I can drag around with 200 lbs of concrete without fear of killing the transmission as it digs deep in my lawn), a Deere 5B sprayer, and a front-mounted dethatcher. I picked up a new old stock snowblower on eBay (for when I move back north in 9 years) for $150. I also upgraded to a 44M Piranha mulching deck, new old stock on eBay from a dealer in Sacramento. The only things I bought at new retail were the dethatcher, spreader and aerator. Total expenditure for this equipment: $3,300. Retail value: well over $10,000. Oh, but owning this little green monster for the past 6 years has been nothing but TROUBLE! My wife is constantly getting on me about spending more time with the lawn and garden than with her!