Han wrote:
"Pete C." wrote in news:4bef7d01$0$23532
:

I spent about $800 on a generator, about 25 years ago. Maintenance
consists of $4 worth of synthetic oil each year. It has provided
power during many days worth of outages, including a ~72hr
continuous run. Many of these outages were in the winter in the
northeast where frozen pipes would have been a threat had I not had
the generator. Being portable, the generator has also been used on a
number of remote construction projects as well. So yes, a generator
is a very inexpensive and reasonable investment.

That's relative. Until a month or so ago, we never had more than a
few hours of power outage at a time. For that an expense of $1500
today plus the maintenance and risk of storing gasoline etc is NOT
worth it.
To me grin.

If you don't want to store gasoline, siphon it out of your car when you need it.