Help me decide on a new riding lawn mower

[ericrugiero]

We live in a fairly rural low cost of living area on two acres of grass.  Part of the property is flat and part is sloped.  My riding mower just died about a week ago and isn't fixable.  I'm probably going to buy a new one and I'm torn on how much to spend.  (I'm looking at used but haven't found anything good yet)  There are two options I'm considering. 

Option 1:  Replaced the mower with a similar mower to the one that died.  Cost is about $1800.  This is a relatively low end riding mower that will last several years.  It takes ~2 hours to mow with this one.  Mower life span is a guess but let's say 8 years.  Hills are hard on a lower end mower.  I could upgrade to a nicer mower and it would last longer but the cost goes up and if I spend that kind of money I want a zero turn. 

Option 2:  Buy a zero turn mower.  A cheaper zero turn is about $3000 but I would buy a slightly upgraded one (Cub Cadet ZT2 50) which has the Kawasaki engine and serviceable transmission for $3800.  With those upgrades the zero turn "should" last considerably longer than the cheap riding mower.  Mowing time drops considerably to just over an hour (I'm guessing).  Mowing also becomes more fun. 

I'm really torn.  On the one hand, my time is worth something and a zero turn would be more fun.  On the other hand, almost $4000 for a mower seems crazy when neither of our vehicles is worth that.  I have the cash right now to buy either and still have a sizeable emergency fund.  But, I could dump more money into the market if I get the cheaper one. 

Anyone want to help me think this through?  I'm probably overthinking this but I'm curious what other people will think. 

[Lucky Penny Acres]

I love my zero turn mower. It makes mowing a lot more fun and definitely way easier if you have to mow around a lot of objects - no more needing to make multiple passes to get close or having to reverse, etc.

Depending on how many turns and trees, etc. are in your mowing area, it may save substantial amounts of time.

A well maintained decent quality zero-turn also holds value better than low-end mowers so you could recover some of the costs if you ever need to liquidate it for cash. You probably won't find any great deals on used zero-turn mowers - at least in my area the used ones are not much of a discount off of brand new.

If you have a lot of money invested already and this isn't really materially impacting your time to FI, I recommend the zero turn.

[RetiredAt63]

I had a lower end mower for my acre.  When I got a lawn service they had zero turn machines with larger mowers.  So fast, such good maintenance.  Seriously, what I paid them would have taken me years to recoup on the cost of the mower and the string trimmer and the small mower that did tricky areas.  I know we are all about DIY here, but I wish I had hired them years before I did.  I kept my little tractor, it was still used to haul a trailer around the yard (soil, plants, etc.).

Do you use your tractor to pull a trailer?  Will a zero turn mower still pull one?

Things to consider.

[ericrugiero]

Do you use your tractor to pull a trailer?  Will a zero turn mower still pull one?

I currently just have a wheelbarrow.  If I do get a trailer in the future the zero turn will pull it. 

[BTDretire]

We purchased a Zero turn mower about 1 yr ago, my wife loves it. She's better at driving it than I am, but she gets more practice. We got very lucky on the purchase, my wife's brother was at Home Depot and saw a Cub Cadet marked at $1500, he told a store clerk to hold it for him, he called my wife and told her, she drove to the store and bought it. It normally sells for just over $3,000. However, it was shortly after the city was devastated by hurricane Micheal and also off season for mowers. They were clearing merchandise to concentrate on building materials to rebuild 1000s of damaged homes.
 Did I say we were lucky, except for the $90k of damage to our home. We were lucky, we could still live in our home, others couldn't.