The situation to start from is stressing conservation in your household - getting a handle on minimums needed and still live comfortably. That will give you the winning perspective from the start...

"Learn more about your solar resource by exploring these Web sites:"

On the other hand, you want some security and if you can cut back your usage [a lot] and increase your home's efficiency, if you get into a finacial situation where the electric bill is critical, you can have a pv system that will give you electricity, perhaps even not-grid-tied, sort of like an emergency gasoline generator but PV instead. This will entail, obviously, running the wiring from the batteries/controls around the house, not a huge thing but a lot of work. This is just one other option to consider.

Since nobody seems to answer your question about figuring out how much PV it takes, here goes:

The daily average number of sun-hours for your general area is 4.1 hours/day (that's the number for Traverse City, it won't change much for a wide area around). That means 1 kW of PV modules should make around 4.1 * 1 = 4.1 kWh/day of electricity. In the real world there are losses (dirt on the modules, temperature losses, inverter losses), so a reasonable number is 70% of this, or 0.7 * 4.1 = 2.87 kWh/day. This assumes the modules have sun from 9am until 3pm (and in mid-winter at least from 10am until 2pm), and are mounted facing due south at the optimal angle for year-around production, which is your latitude (or 43 degrees for you, it doesn't matter if you're off by a bit, production does not go down much for small angle changes). You can do the same calculation for other locations, just substitute the daily average number of sun-hours for the location. The above is for grid-tie, in case of battery charging or for a very hot climate I would derate by more than 30%.

So, to recap, 1 kW of PV will net you 2.87 kWh/day on average for your location (more in the summer, less in the winter, this is an annual average measured over multiple years). Just in parts (panels, inverter, racks) you're probably looking at around at least $6/Watt, or $6K per kW. To generate 13,000 kWh per year means you need just over 12 kW in PV on the roof, or an investment of around 12 * 6,000 = $72,000 if you buy the parts and do the work yourself (yes, it's that much!). Now you know why energy savings is the best investment, and why it is so hard to compete with the electrical utility...

A good site to investigate for how to conserve on energy, not just electricity but heating and cooling and water use, hot water heating etc.. is:

http://builditsolar.com/

 Also you will find resources here for conservation. You will be amazed at the things it's possible to do to save on energy by a small or no outlay of cash.

Like at least one person said already, the power company can supply you with power much cheaper than you think you can supply it to yourself. So viewing things from a short term perspective, you would actually be losing money. Long term, you end up paying your electricity bill in advance. PV panels can last a very long time, and baring inverter/controller failure over time, you still have to buy new batteries every 5 years or less. OR learn how to rejuvenate batteries on your own, which still costs money. Anyhow, very long term you may come out ahead, but it would not be likely.

Our battery bank right now consists of 9 12v marine deep cycle batteries. ~1200 ah(amp hours), lets us(two people) run two laptops, and several lights during the day, and through the night. We must have sun from 11am - 3PM for these batteries to charge fully for this cycle to continue. Cost of these batteries was ~$700, and we want/need many, many more. We are also located in E Arizona where the sun shows very good. Still, you can not count on it always being there for you.

Charge controllers 2x Xantrex C60's. ~$150 each. Not much else to really say here, they do a good job.

3. x 200W PV panels, currently not hooked up, but cost ~$650 each.
44. x 60W PV panels (only 16 currently hooked up) free! Given to us by a radio station where my friend works as an Engineer. The 16 we have hooked up currently give us roughly 40amps while the sun is shinning, and we usually hit full charge around 3PM.

So, all in all we're talking $9650 to live completely off grid 'reasonably' comfortable, while getting very good deals on the generator, and free panels(over 2KW of panels for free is something that will not happen for most). All that, and we still can not use our main desktop computer systems for more than short periods of time. My pride and joy gaming computer (which is actually very modest compared to many out there) will drain this battery bank in 2-3hours . . .

What I would suggest as a start is that you and your husband find a kill-a-watt P4 power monitoring device(s)(these can be found online for ~$15 each on sale), plug all your electric devices into them, and start making choices on what you can do without. After that look into buying lower powered devices where it makes sense, especially if you use computers a lot.

I've tried to write this up 3 or 4 times already and never got the angle I wanted quite write, err right, written, whatever... Remember the "bulk-of-system" frames, trackers, wiring, combiner boxes, disconnects, inverters, batteries are going to be a large expense - perhaps equal to the solar panels themselves.

Yyrkoon's $10,000 earning 4% interest is $400 income - in our Minnesota electric utility rates that $400 equals 3200 kilowatt hours worth of utility power, or 8.75Kwh per day. (4% interest chosen at random, your mileage may vary)

To equal that amount of PV generated electricity from the 5 average peak sunshine hours in a day requires 1,750 watts of solar panels, which sell for around $5 per watt new, so I am describing a $8750 investment in panels to do something with your savings cash now earning interest to offset 'burned' monies spent on utility power.

Now keeping some liquidity in your new PV investment, being able to cash out, means being able to resell the panels if/when the need arises. With 25 or 30 year warranties on mono or polycrystalline PV panels they do not take large depreciation hits until 6-10 years (Avoid thin-films as they don't hold their resale value) so you may get $3.50 or $4.00 a watt back. Small to midsize panels always command best prices on eBay & Craigslist.

The smartest original buying also calculates in the shipping charges, there is a spot where the panels shipping carton length x width inches invokes a surcharge that doubles or triples shipping, or even forces it to truck freight - keeping them on the smaller side makes reselling them easier as shipping won't be a deal killer then. Save the original packing materials. A quick search on several online sellers shows the shipping rate jump happening around 100 watts panel size, this varies with man'f construction, cell efficiency etc. but you get the idea...

Two words here:
Weaterize, and solarize.
Insulate, calk, make some insulating window treatments etc. Make sure you are not loosing heat (money out the window).
Next, try some simple solar projects. My brother built an attached greenhouse using scrap storm windows, 2x4s and two inches of foam insulation. On sunny days he opens the kitchen window to the greenhouse and uses a small solar powered fan to move the air. He has black painted metal roofing inside the greenhouse to gather the heat.