What Brian is saying is very much correct. You need to factor in all costs. Driving, car expense, time, printer cost, paper, ink, etc. All of it is a "cost".
The reason some bring it up is because people do NOT figure it all in, like Brian said. When you get someone like Brian to explain it, you want to cry
But, if you are doing a comfortable business, making enough money and having fun (VERY important) than it doesn't really matter about the overall cost, in theory.
But the topic is budgeting for a printer. So how long is it going to take to recoup a possible $2000 printer expense, plus the cost of each print when compared against driving to your lab and getting less than 100% satisfaction or using a place like Mpix or WHCC?
That is the real question and you should have some good ideas on that now...