Haven't worked out exactly where we are on finances at this point:

 - Stove we bought was a high-end one and we paid more for a couple sheds to store the pellets than we paid for the pellets.  That has to get amortized over more than one year.

 - California has this strange socialized gas billing system where, if you cut your gas usage for two of the deep winter months (Jan and Feb?) by 10% from the previous three year average you get a 20% discount the next two months.  So we ran the pellet stove for the two cold months and then ran on mains gas for the discounted months.  B-)  (I had a hernia and wife had vertigo so decided to skip toting pellets for a bit.  Good timing, PG&E.)

So we're probably behind at the moment.

But even without the discount and paying hardware store palletload prices for the pellets rather than warehouse rates the stove came out FAR ahead on fuel costs.  (Also was a comfier heat than the forced air furnace.)

At this point we've got the capital costs out of the way and about 2/3 ton of pellets left over from last year (burned about a ton and a half then).  So we'll probably only need one more ton for this winter.  Pellets are industrial waste and we expect them to stay cheap while gas is mined fuel and pricey.  Cross fingers.

Meanwhile the Harman stove feeds up from the bottom and can burn a bunch of other stuff (with an insert change):  Cherry pits, corn, ...  Also daydreaming about getting a mini pellet mill and making my own from the weeds on the Nevada place's 5 acres of high desert.  THAT would be fun!

   That sentence just leaped out at me, sums up the excesses that we take for granted today. I remember (just) when only certain rooms of the house were heated. When refrigerated or evaporative cooling - a near "necessity" in our climate -  was a luxury unavailable to most.