"When Eric King moved from his apartment in Pittsburgh to a single-family home with a lawn, he bought a manual lawn mower instead of the usual gas-powered kind. He figures he's putting money in his pocket and saving trips to the filling station."
Crazy! I have a riding mower for a 1/3 acre lot (stupid but my previous lawn was 1 3/4 acres when I bought the mower). For the season, I use up two 5 gallon containers of gas for a total of 10 gallons. I usually have some left over as well. We're talking about the difference of 20 bucks for the season and I can mow my lawn in less than an hour which includes the trimming/edging. Or, I could buy a manual mower and save 40 bucks for the season and spend 4 times as much time on the yard each time. Unless your career is delivering pizzas, it's worth your time to get the job done faster. Geeze.