I'm lucky. My A&P charges me $35 per hour and doesn't pad the hours. He works on the ramp at TMB, in Miami, but has access to a hangar for retraction tests and the like. Did I tell you he used to own a Skymaster and has thousands of hours flying it? Which means that he knows the aircraft inside out and
likes working on them. Moreover, he knows what needs immediate attention and what can wait till next annual. We then work with an IA for annuals who has been inspecting my airplane for years.
On parts, I search and pay directly for all the parts needed, looking for used whenever possible (click on "Purchasing Parts" on my "backup" Skymaster website at
www.SkymasterUS.com to see the protocols I follow).
As a result of the foregoing, my annual costs are typically under $2,000 per year. The labor is around $750 (including my A&P and the IA) and the parts average under $1,000. (This suggests that you Northerners could bring your airplane down to Miami and have a free vacation while my guy does your annual!)
To be fair, that doesn't cover all yearly maintenance costs. For instance, this past year I felt that the prop governors were drifting, found in the record books that they hadn't been overhauled in 10 years and had them overhauled for a total of around $1,000.
Overall, I think my yearly maintenance expenses are probably in the $3,000 to $4,000 range.
Ernie