(apologies for the long dwell between posts, have been very busy with other things)

Rent vs. Buy? Which is better? In most cases, when doing DIY jobs around the house, it makes sense to rent odd tools. Power augers for drilling post holes, for example, are extremely expensive and for $100 or so you can rent one for a day. But how often are you drilling 4 foot holes in the ground anyway? Your local home building center has a vast array of tools, gadgets and things that you can otherwise kill yourself with, that they’ll gladly rent to you by the hour, or the day. Thing is, when you do the math, it almost always makes sense to buy the tool you want to rent but only if you need it for multiple jobs.

POWER TOOLS!

For example — For about $75 a day I can rent myself a wet saw for cutting tile. I have two major tiling jobs to do this summer, the kitchen floor and back splash, and a bathroom. I found a great tile saw on sale this past weekend for about $175. I’m not a tiling pro, far from it, so I figure the kitchen back splash alone will take me a few days and with several cuts required I’d need a tile saw for about that time. It’s almost paid for itself. Add the bathroom job and I’ve saved myself some cash! There’s also the side benefit of saving on the trips back and forth to the hardware store to pick up and return the unit.

Here’s the best part. If you find a unit like this on sale (40-50% off is not unheard of for tool sales!) you can probably sell it after you use it for what you paid!

Yup, that wet saw I bought is $275 regularly. I figure asking $150 for it on Craigslist after I use it a few times isn’t unfair. Take care of it, keep your receipts and be sure to list it when similar tools aren’t on sale.

OK … almost free!