You can do it for under $1000 for you are comfortable working in your electrical panel. And you will end up with a system that will run every light and receptacle in your house without running extension cords. A portable genny works fine, the downside is that you have to move it outdoors and plug it in and worry about whether it will start and how many things you can hook up to it. Only way to fix those are to install a whole house gas (not gasoline) fuel unit. The obvious trade off is cost. If you can't afford the whole house version, get a portable one rated around 5000 watts and backfeed your main house panel with a 30 amp 240 volt circuit and install a main breaker generator interlock kit like this: https://www.amazon.com/Generator-Int...6555886&sr=8-4 https://www.homedepot.com/p/Champion...B&gclsrc=aw.ds You just need to be smart about not overloading the generator by running your oven or big a/c units or your big motor shop tools. I mark and flip off those big unit breakers when I run my generator. When done I turn off the gasoline shutoff and let it run until out of gas. Champion makes affordable generators that run on either gasoline, propane or natural gas.