Personally, I just can't think of the cost...because if I do, it defeats the purpose. I get enough harvest to share with everyone in the neighborhood, but if I kept it all, I'd be WAY ahead of the game. But I'm not, because I like to share. Fencing- Might have been around $60 last year. Black Plastic- around $80 (gag!) for a 100 x 20 roll. I realize this year that I can get at least 2 years out of it by reusing last year's and doubling some to eliminate the holes (because I dig diff't pattern beds every year) Seeds- don't ask. I'm a sucker for a pretty package. Potting soil for a winter-sower: about $40 annually between flowers & veggies. Onion starts: $30 I think this time For what I spend to DIY, I could easily save more/spend less by going the grocery-store route with the amount that I actually keep for my own use. I need to learn to can & freeze. Maybe I need that Food Saver they were just advertising on QVC yesterday...($90) It's a hobby. And I like it. The only ones getting any 'savings' from my venture are the people at work that take the offerings in the kitchen. Sigh.

Thanks to all who responded to my post. I've been about every route with my mother's estate. With Craig's List I usually end up waiting for people that never show up. I don't live close enough to any large population centers to make it worth the trip for anyone interested in just one thing. I had one woman leave an angry message on my answering machine "I drove for two hours and I still didn't reach your town!" I have contacted estate liquidators and the consensus of opinion is that unless I have very high-end antiques (you know - Ming vases and Duncan Phyfe furniture) it would cost me more to pay them to do a sale than I could make from the sale. Most of the dealers here in upstate New York only want the very finest antiques and collectibles. Consignment shops won't take anything either because they are not selling very much right now. Everyone is griping about how bad the antiques market is. I guess I just hit it at the worst possible time. I know my mom bought most of her things, like Depression glass, in the 1970's when it was a hot item and expensive. Now you can't give it away. A few weeks ago I saw a Madrid cookie jar in the local Salvation Army for $2.99. I went back this week and it was still there! I have two pieces of Oyster and Pearl I've been trying to sell - a 14 inch sandwich plate and a divided relish. No one even looks at them. Most people that stop at my sale ask for: military and sports memorabilia, old fishing equipment, jewelry and gold and silver coins. Yeah, everyone has that laying around the house. I made a Web page with photographs of some of the contents of the house. If you'd like to look, click on link below. On another note, I theorize that unless you can have a tag sale on the first or second weekend of the month, don't bother. By the time the third and last week of the month rolls around, people are starting to run short on money and not looking to blow it at a tag sale. Any opinions on this? Here is a link that might be useful: Contents of House

Interesting thread. Lots of people got generators after the 1998 Ice Storm, but without being maintained, most were useless after a couple of years. I don't know about the bigger ones being discussed in this thread. Many city homes (ours included) have a gas fireplace, so that would handle the heat issue of being without electric power. And we have several power boxes that can be used off-grid that are handle for short power failures (to plug in some lights). I wouldn't bother with a generator, myself. During the big power failure in August (2004?), we just did without power for a day, but a few people in our urban neighbourhood had generators - it just made the rest of us irritated, because they ran their AC and had all their lights on, and made a racket. Not impressed.

(1) Laminate WILL NOT stand up to big dogs. I have a breed that is huge - 29" at the shoulder 110 -130 lbs. Water bowl spills kill it. Potty accidents kill it. (2) wood-look laminate floors -- I will either walk away or make an offer low enough to cover ripping that junk out and replacing it with anything else. It is NOT wood. It is sawdust that is glued together. The a photograph of wood is glued to the saw dust. The plastic is poured over it. Absolute low rent garbage. $20,000 to put down hardwood flooring....... WOW! That is nuts for anything less than 1600++ sq ft of oak or maple that had to be stained and finished. FInd a Lumber Liquidators store. Get some unfinished pine - even down to the $1.39 a sq ft. Get some mastic. Get some stain. Get some real varnish - like McCloskey's Marine and do 4 coats. Get a circular saw. Put down the flooring. If you need to level, get some underlayment - adds about $1300 to the project. Pay your handyman $20 an hour. Work alongside him getting boards, putting down mastic, spreading stain and varnish, doing the light sand between coats with 150-200 grit and wiping with a tack cloth...... if it takes 2 weeks (huge am0unt of time) you pay him $1600. Total cost for the whole house - $5200 -7300 if you do it and $6800 -9100 if you have help. (and you won't be doing the bath or kitchen....so sq ft would be less)