Impact driver vs good socket wrench?

Both is the answer. Set a small budget every month, and soon you will have more tools than you will know what to do with.

My biggest problem is I live in the city and have no room for storage. I also move a ton. So when I buy something I really got to think if the space it takes up is worth having it. My 240 wagon has great room to store tools but I park on the street and lots of people pass by the car.

In reply to Coldsnap:

A good quality cantilever toolbox will hold a very adequate tool kit and not take up much space. I usually travel with a cantilever box for that reason.

I have one of these Bosch 12V impact drivers and love it. It puts out more torque and runs longer than my old Ni-Cd Craftsman from a few years ago, and it's smaller and quieter too. Most of the time, it's used for putting together flat pack furniture, or driving screws for whatever we're putting on the wall around the house. It's tiny, so it fits in small spaces, but the lithium ion battery lasts longer than most projects. The biggest project so far was to install plywood as part of installing tile floors in my office. I put down almost four whole sheets of plywood (the room was a few inches shy of whole sheets) and fastened them with a screw every six inches. So, we're in the area of 500 screws, and I think I used two batteries to get it done across a couple of evenings.

If you ever need to get a job done quickly, a 1/2" drive "big" air impact to take things apart and a 1/4" drive air ratchet to snug things up before using the torque wrench will save a huge percentage of the time needed.

There are plenty of times when I can't get a bolt off with a regular handled ratchet, and I can't get at it with a breaker bar, even with an awesome set of extensions and flexies. But I can get the impact in there with an extension.

But here's the thing: I've never failed to complete a project just because I couldn't get a bolt off. But there have been projects where I needed just about every wrench option in the chest to get all the bolts off.

Getting a corded electric impact might be a good starter option if it has solid torque and you have power in the garage. That leaves you money for a selection of manual stuff.