Is worth it to have one if you cannot get a service to come dig you out after real heavy snows. Your planning is about 37 times better than the average 100 people that I would see here coming into the grocery store on an average Friday. I would keep the 2stage serviced up and use the snowjoe for light work and be a little more diligent on my gas can. I did not need a snowblower at all last year. But I darn sure was glad I had one this year. A single stage would have fared very poorly in the last two storms we had.