from what I know it can work out expensive, the idea is to ensure that everything is 100% correct before the render, and that rarely happens, I would upgrade your computer, gets you a better comp and faster render times.

the below renders took 30+ hours, but I usually set it up and let it run overnight, by the morning I know if its going to be ok or not.
render farms are for the pros, who make lots of money from their work.
my work is done using an Asus G75v.
Yeah I guess you are right. The problem is, I've got a state of the art desktop in the Netherlands which has cost me over 4000 Euro. My dad tried to render all my stuff there but he doesn't have a clue what he's doing. Shipping the whole thing is too risky

A render like you've just posted would take over 100 hours on my laptop (using Indigo renderer) depending on the resolution.