As soon as you crash the plane your going to be buying extra covering for it anyways, and im sure that the plane doesn't use exactly 3 rolls of covering so you would have some left over for minor tears. Plust the instructions that come with the kit make it real easy to rebuild everything, as a matter of fact I believe there was a post in this forum not too long ago that had somebody asking how to fix wing spars on their LT-40, and since they didn't have the plans it made it a lot more challenging.

It is a matter of opinion basically, some people would rather build and some people would rather be straight up in the air flying. I guess that money isn't so much of an argument (technically you can buy cheap covering that would still save you like $20 overall) its a matter of personal preference. I live in NY and it will snow almost all winter so I figure I can spend my time inside building since I wouldn't get a chance to fly in the winter and I don't want to learn on ski's, maybe that can come later.