Getting into surface mount - Hand soldering or reflow oven?

[z.s.tar.gz]

I'm at the point where I really need to get into smd's, but I don't have a lot of money to do so.
I'm wondering which option is a better bang for your buck: Buying a hot air rework/soldering iron station, or modifying a toaster oven to do reflow?
They both seem to have their advantages and disadvantages, so I'm wondering what you as the community have to say.

[Razor Concepts]

Use your normal iron? As long as you have a sharp tip and some solder wick, it is amazing the things one can solder with just an iron 

Here was my first attempt at SMD, and it worked great. Only used an iron and some solder wick for the mega168.

[GearMotion]

I'm at the point where I really need to get into smd's, but I don't have a lot of money to do so.
I'm wondering which option is a better bang for your buck: Buying a hot air rework/soldering iron station, or modifying a toaster oven to do reflow?
They both seem to have their advantages and disadvantages, so I'm wondering what you as the community have to say.

I like the automated assembly machine...

You can desolder with a hot air station, but not (not easily) with an oven.

[SmAsH]

As long as you dont want to go beyond leds, caps and qfp's you should be fine with a regular iron and a sharp tip.

[z.s.tar.gz]

I think I'm going to go with soldering, as I would need hot air rework stuff anyways.

(btw, this is my 4th time trying to post)