I love alternative ways of thinking about housing
(sorry I lied about the video thing.)
It’s you, PF community, not me
One of the things I have done this past December is cut down on the amount of Personal Finance blogs/Substacks, videos and podcasts that I consume. At the end of the day, most of the content out there is just splitting hairs for nerds or a rehashing of the same advice. I still enjoy it but honestly, I am well past the point where I GAF* about whether or not, for example, people should buy XEQT or VEQT and save cents on the dollar when we live in a world where most people struggle to even save $100. That isn’t the bottleneck for most people, the basics are. This isn’t shade to those creators – some people love those debates and love reading and writing about them. But I am done with the made-up hand-wringing of nothingburger questions.
Part of this is because we’ve made it: we’ve achieved our goals and quite frankly this content hasn’t been enjoyable for a while, so I am going to just stop. It used to be that I enjoyed reading that content because it felt nice to read people’s individual struggles when I was going through my own. But the other part is that the core tenets of personal finance haven’t changed in a really long time. Sure, the methodology and access to investments has changed but the basics of how to manage money has not really moved the needle since OG DJ Chuck D said, “Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty-pound ought and six, result misery.”
Another part of this is that I am just so sick and tired of the constant ads, amazon affiliate links, pop-ups and course offerings shilled by every website. Again, no shade to those creators at ALL: the bills must be paid and somewhere along the way we have collectively decided that user-hostile websites & affiliate links was the way we would pay for content. I actually prefer when creators write books because it feels satisfying to hold a book in my hot little hands (I have also bought books for my kindle, so that works, too). I think I just enjoy having all of the info in one place, offline. But it’s become off-putting when I hit a website where it’s pop-ups and ads skewing the window and there are so many affiliate links, calls to action and mediocre course offerings/coaching** that consists of someone just editing a mish mash of content you can find for free online and giving it a fancy new name, “It’s not a budget! We hates budgets, don’t we Precious! It’s Personal Accountability Tool!”
This is also just discussing people who I actually do give out good advice – established, intelligent folks who give advice that I may not agree with but is generally well thought out and competent. On the flip side, we have these TikTok Finluencers who have the most unhinged hot takes (enragement is engagement!) whose existence I generally try and ignore.
Finally, as I mentioned earlier: I am spending more time in the meat space. What happens when you achieve your goals? As it turns out, for me, the answer is to live a bigger life learning new things, doing more art, hanging out with more friends and trying new things. I no longer HAVE to sit in front of a computer for work so I don’t have the need to take short breaks to read posts or to listen to podcasts while I work. I think I kept up with a lot of websites and podcasts because it was good to have a few things in my back pocket to keep my brain busy when I was stuck in place. Then I just didn’t cull when I retired.
I eventually did start to scale back the content I was mainlining and worked on my social media use as well. Now, I have nothing but facebook now (marketplace and local communities keep me hooked and it’s just basically an address book now) which I only access by desktop.
I suspect I should write up what I believe are the core tenets of personal finance. So maybe that will be next. Or maybe my absolute frustration with Substack and the complete lack of viable business models for content. Or maybe authenticity vs. income.
Oh, and if you’ve read this far – Happy New Year!
*Give a fuck – shout out to my Oldhomies
**As an aside, I know a disproportionate amount of people who lost their jobs and became life coaches
Happy New Year 2025!
In lieu of writing something today, I give you: Memories of Tucker past and present. I’ll leave it up to you to determine which is which.
(I promise to stop posting videos and write something up shortly)
Just a wee video about old craftspeople
Chair Bodgers is my new band name
Meat space
Apologies for a really quiet fall. I Have been spending time in the meat space as part of the GREAT DISILLUSIONMENT I have been having with the online world.
Sorry that this is more of a list than a post, but you get what you pay for!
Bringing in the herbs
It has generally been a fairly busy autumn season as Thanksgiving & Halloween are generally chaotic times and then runs smack dab into Christmastide, which is just bonkers. Halloween is also our favourite holiday of the year so we tend to do a LOT at that time of the year.
I had a free night hotel reward I had to use so we headed to Kingston for the weekend to do Fort Fright at Fort Henry. It was only a day trip but it was good to get away and the kids love Fort Fright. Our friends invited us for Thanksgiving so we baked some pies before we left to bring with us on the Monday for dinner.
Our kids really lean into it by going to a local farm for their myriad haunted houses and other activities. We also do the obligatory pumpkin carving night. I love that our teens still are into dressing up in elaborate costumes and heading out to trick-or-treat. Gen-Z is truly amazing and I really like how they are more than happy to savour every moment of their childhoods. That meant we hosted 8 children for dinner before they headed out into the night. Mr. Tucker and I stayed back and handed out candy to the neighbourhood kids and it was a pretty great night.
My book-slash-travel-slash-trivia-slash-craft club went to Montreal for a weekend in November. We took the train which is still an absolute treat even for my adult self. We managed to grab a table together so we could chat and it was a relaxing fall ride through the countryside. We booked an Airbnb which was mostly accessible and right in the middle of where we wanted to be. We did all of the requisite Montreal things: lunch at Swartz’s, Bagels from a variety of amazing places, and a fun trip to Notre Dame cathedral for the sound and light show. But also we just chilled out, played games and chatted. It was a lovely weekend with friends.
Ok, we ate a LOT
Mr. Tucker took a 3-day knife-making course in November as well, in which he crafted a blade from a metal ingot, sewed a leather pouch for it, and carved a wood handle as well. It was an intense three days but he ended up with a fantastic Pukka knife that he made with his own hands.
We also did a knit Viking bracelet class at the Tool Library which was super interesting. It was my birthday gift to myself and we both came home with cool bracelets. Hopefully they will host another class in the new year because even though I was slow, I really enjoyed the process.
Mr. Tucker and I did most of our Christmas shopping in October and the beginning of November. This year, instead of buying Advent calendars we made them. They kids actually loved them and asked us to do that again next year. It was just things like lip balms, tea, face masks and stickers but it was fun. Right after Remembrance day, we finished all of the wrapping. Then all that was left was to nab the book-a-day Advent calendars from our local used book store and we were done for the year. I know that this seems INTENSE but December is a chaotic month between my birthday, Christmas parties, school concerts, the Winter Solstice party and Christmas that getting all of the gifts out of the way means I can lean in and enjoy the events…
Pics with Krampus at Coffin Creek
Decorating the tree
Advents
…and events there were! There were two PWHL games we got to end the year with, which was a teaser for January. I was sadly sick in bed on my birthday which was also the evening of The Eldest’s Christmas concert, so I was forced to miss it. We did manage to have cake, so YAY? I did manage to have my monthly dinner with friends from Dragon Boat and we went to the restaurant where my Stepson is chef, which was, as usual, amazing.
The parties were great: we have been having a friend Christmas get-together for around 20 years now and it has become more and more subdued over the years. In the beginning, we used to have these absolute ragers of food and drink where we were up until 6am still chatting. But we’ve become more sleepy in our old age and the party starts and ends earlier. I’m not made about it: it’s kind of lovely to have friends you can age with where you are all on the same page as the years go on. While we were out seeing friends, the kids were baking and decorating 4 dozen cupcakes for The Mission’s Cupcakes4Christmas event. They did an amazing job. I truly love having teenagers. They’re great!
We hosted a wonderfully quiet Winter Solstice party where we drank hot apple cider and made painted wood ornaments, strung dried citrus garlands and tossed our wishes into the fire with our hopes for 2025. It was low key and stress free, which is exactly how I like it. The kids invited friends so we got to share our 25-year-strong tradition with some new folks. It is one of my favourite nights of the year. A peaceful evening of fire, friends, food and introspection.
Naturally, that lead us right into Yuletide. Gone are the people-pleasing years of large dinners with the entire family descending on our home until Mr. Tucker and I were crushed by the weight of expectations, food, and alcohol. In the good way that the pandemic years turned everything on its head, we were happy to not have to host and so when restrictions let up, we…just didn’t host. The kids loved the new low-key Christmas where they didn’t have to dress up and perform like Circus animals for relatives with huge expectations. Shocking to no one: no one invited us to their houses when we stopped hosting. So it was, indeed, a fantastic decision.
Now we have a lovely Christmas Eve with my Dad and his girlfriend and my cousin (and his new partner joined us this year, which was amazing!). We order Chinese food, catch up and have a few drinks. Christmas morning starts late, we unwrap gifts and chill out drinking coffee or tea before Mr. Tucker whips up some crêpes for brunch and then we veg in our PJs and watch movies or shows. This year we watched the very last season of What We Do in the Shadows.
Finally, on Boxing Day my Stepson and his girlfriend come over and Mr. Tucker and my Stepson whipped up a feast before we have drinks and play Euchre. A perfect Christmastide, if I do say so myself.
So now we are smack dab into the Omen Days (intercalary days) or as I like to call them, “the days where we are made of just chocolate and cheese.” It ends with Women’s Little Christmas (or the Epiphany) (which I also wrote about last year). The plan is for the kids to have a NYE sleepover with their friends, a games night with our favourite folks, The Lytles and to generally putter around until school starts on January 6th.
Some last-minute wrapping on Yule Eve
Of course, so many other things have been happening including a bit of a personal renaissance (more about that soon) but it all comes down to this: I had planned to do a lot more in-person activities in 2024 and I DID IT. I had thought I was slacking on this goal but looking back even over the past quarter – I did a lot of stuff out in the Meat Space!
But I am getting ahead of myself…goals from 2024 and a wrap up is soon to come!
The HONEY browser extension is a scam
Like everything else from online reviews to social media, discount browser extensions are also shady AF
The World’s First Money is Older Than You Think
Renting vs. buying: Canadian edition
I only recently started following Rational Reminder and I found this video on renting vs. owning in Canada fascinating. One, because it is a Canadian model; and two, because I have always thought “owning is throwing your money away” was a silly comment. Housing is a need, being angry about renting is – to me – equivalent of being angry at your grocery bill because you eventually have to go to the bathroom.
That said, I also have discovered that a lot of people prefer owning because of the reasons laid out below: it’s more of a psychology problem than a money problem. While I have discussed this issue in other posts and don’t regret my decision, a $15000-$22000 savings (on average) if you do EVERYTHING right as a renter just isn’t worth it to me. I really enjoyed this deep dive and model and I have summed up some of the key points below.
Renting vs. owning in Canada: research & a model
– Houses are forced savings. People are better at paying a bill than they are about saving money. If you are going to rent, it is only a better deal if you are investing the money.
– Owning is riskier short-term but is inflation-hedged in the long term. Renting is the opposite: riskier long-term due to inflation.
– Ben Felix’s model (2005+) includes both current rents and rent controlled units (vacant vs. occupied) for myriad rental types (bachelor, 2-bed etc) and both the primary (purpose-built rentals) and secondary units (condos someone may choose to rent) and includes things such as down payment and insurance costs as well. He runs the model as if the difference is invested in the market and is not taxed (ie: in a TFSA). See the video for a more detailed explanation of how he invested the money and the fees for owners and below market vs. jumping to a market rent as well as where he got his pricing details from. It assumes you would save 90% of the difference between renting and owning. Land also typically increases but building decrease so he does include some maintenance in his calculation. But he basically concludes that:
-
o Renting beats owning in 7 of the 12 metropolitan areas where he ran his model
o The renting net worth beat owning by +$15000
o Edmonton had the least difference between +renting vs. -owning
o Kitchener-Waterloo had the highest difference between +owning vs.-renting
o Investment fees are important: 0.25% is used for this model but people were actually paying WAY more (probably around 2.5% on average). In 2022 it was 1.76% on average, largely driven by active mutual funds. If he bumps the fee up to that 1.76%, renting trails owning in 10 of the 12 areas. IMO: this is a super important finding mostly because Canadians didn’t have access to discount brokerages for this entire period and were paying higher investment fees. We tend to forget but before the 2010s, self-directed investing was more difficult than it is today! Most people used banks or FAs that charged an AUM!
o On savings efficiency (how much of the difference you actually save to invest). If you save:
– 100% is where owning comes out ahead in 5/12 areas
– 90% is where owning comes out ahead in 7/12 areas
– 80% is where you are better off owning in 10 of the 12 areas
That is a HUGE difference!
o For the maintenance cost assumption:
– 2% it was better to own in 7 areas
– 3% it was better to rent in 3 areas
– 2.2% (the average) is 6 out of 12 favour owners
o They assumed amortization is 25 years but if you knock it back to 15, owning only beats renting in 3 areas and renter wealth exceeds owner wealth by $78000 on average. A 35 year amortization owning beats renting in 6 areas and owner wealth beats renter wealth by a little over $15000.
o With a 50% downpayment renters come out ahead in 9 out of 12 areas & renter wealth exceeds owner by $59000. With a 5% downpayment, renters still have a 7/12 advantage but the renter wealth advantage drops to $12000. Leverage works!
o This assumes you were also all-in on 100% equities, which may have been super difficult for people, especially through the 2008 financial crisis. “People panic sell stocks when they go down but rarely does anyone panic sell a home.”
o Disc: Maintenance/depreciation as a percentage of the housing value is contentious because the exact same structure may not cost more to maintain just because it is in a HCOLA area. BF then goes out to silo maintenance vs. depreciation and for this he looked at condo fees and discovered that in lower priced cities, condo fees were higher and in higher priced cities condo fees were lower (as a percentage of the property value). The result? Only one city – Victoria – switched sides from renting to owning being more of a benefit and it only increased renting to being advantageous by $22000 vs. $15000 in the model above.
Good points to consider
– People may be buying for their future selves, not their current needs.
– In an emergency, the last thing you will stop paying is your mortgage but the first thing to go is the savings.
– All things need to go right in order for the models to truly favour renting: discipline to save, low fees, not panic selling your portfolio and psychologically, this is very difficult.
– Renting is throwing your money away unless you are already prone to throwing your money away
The Commentariat
They did a video update based on the comments they received, and it is also well worth the watch:
– Here is the Globe and Mail article they reference
– You can’t get evicted owning but if you have to move, the transaction costs are a lot
– Moving is disruptive (especially for kids)
– Maybe there aren’t rentals in the place you want to live & it’s especially more difficult to find single-family homes
– “Renting isn’t throwing money away, throwing money away is throwing money away, buying a home may help people to throw less money away”
– “People rent for the minimum they will accept but buy for the ideal” …or buy for the future
– People don’t do the math on housing. The amount properties increase never are as crazy as they seem when you break it down
– Owning a home becomes more attractive when you have maxed out your other non-taxable accounts due to the no capital gains on your primary residence in Canada
– Landlords are taking a loss on ownership in some areas & holding out for capital appreciation (they didn’t discuss that a lot of landlord expenses are tax deductible though as are losses when rent doesn’t pay the bills)
– “Wealthy people tend to be owners!” But renters also tend to be younger, make less money and spend more of their income on housing. Correlation ≠ not causation
– Just because you could hypothetically have a higher net worth doesn’t mean you should necessarily borrow against your house but for a lot more volatility and less peace of mind
– Renters need more wealth because they don’t have the hedge against future housing consumption
– If you do find a great rent controlled place, renters can have less stress and more money
– Labour mobility: owning while young could commit you to one geographic location and it could stifle your career
…but are owners happier than renters?
– Canada: no significant impact except for lower income households were more unhappy. Similar neighbourhoods = similar happiness
– Switzerland: no, maybe small negative relationship between owning and happiness
– Germany: yes, but much less than people think (especially for people who are extrinsically motivated)
– US: no. Owners are more unhappy because they spend less on other enjoyable activities
– Germany: mortgage debt negatively affects people, especially for people who have higher mortgages relative to income
Thoughts
There are some things that I have brought up before but I feel need special attention here as well:
You can go a very, very, very long time not doing any maintenance to a house except for emergency repairs and still have a liveable space & see a huge appreciation in your land value. Almost every neighbourhood I have every lived in has had one of those neighbours who keeps to themselves, does almost no home maintenance and the grounds are only sporadically maintained. The roof shingles are peeling, their cars are on blocks and they generally seem to be shut-ins. One day you see a for sale sign, a dumpster is placed in the driveway and it is sold for land value & torn down. Now, I am not recommending this by any means but most homes can go a very long time without preventative maintenance. You can live somewhere for a really long time without it falling down around you.
On the back of that, I’d like to say: if you are poor, disabled or on a fixed income: buy! Smarter people would buy together. If you are going to have to rent a shared space anyway, then if you can qualify for a mortgage, do so. Single parents, disabled folks and poorer folks have less options when they are renovicted. So why not buy with friends? In my province it is two adults per sleeping room. I mean, I also lived in a 17-bedroom Goth commune in university so maybe I just have a higher tolerance for friction than many other people.
We have a pretty ok financial plan but if everything went to crapola, we would rent rooms out. The going rate in my neighbourhood for a room rental is $1000. Having a house would allow us to take in some renters to smooth over some rough patches in our retirement plans. Do I want to do this? No. But I would in a heartbeat over losing my home or not eating. Sure, it’s great for Mr. Tucker and I to have a shared office but if we needed to we’d pack it in and rent the room. Having a home gives us this option. Even if we end up selling this house when the kids move and buying, say, a smaller condo I would definitely stick with a two-bedroom so that we could take in a renter if need be. Heck, having co-op or exchange students would bring in income and give you summers off if you wanted as well. I can’t rent a part of my portfolio (although, I may be able to use it for a loan).
To me, the peace of mind of having an accessible, paid off home that can house my family is worth the $15000-$22000 price tag of a LIFETIME of PERFECT investments. I know I won’t be a perfect investor, so forced savings works for me. I also like to put holes in my walls to hang up art and I adore my accessible bathtub. I have been tossed from way too many apartments in my 20s to really consider going back to renting unless I was under duress. Sure, our house appreciated by 55% in the 7 years since we bought it (which mimics a similar investment in the TSX) and because the house was maintained well by the previous owner we’ve only done cosmetic things to it (except for the bathtub but I got tax credits for that). So overall I am happy with my choice.
(I have done my best to take notes/summarize as much as possible. Most errors are probably my own and not the creator’s. Apologies if there are mistakes)
Kitchen reno results!
A very unimpressed Cooper
Well, it’s done! While I said in my last post that it would probably cost less than 4 replacement cabinet doors, it was closer to 11. Oh well! I guess a potential career as an estimator is off the table. We also didn’t end up using the handyman. Mr. Tucker managed all of the tiling himself.
We only put the finishing touches on the kitchen early this week and although it took a little over three weeks to finish, that is mostly because we have other things on the go as well. We went to Kingston overnight on Thanksgiving weekend & our kid’s activities have started up again so between meals and work and activities and social stuff, we have eked out a kitchen refresh as well. I am terribly impressed with ourselves, if I do say so myself.
Chaos reigns!
The majority of the kudos belongs to Mr. Tucker who removed the metal peel-and-stick tile (which was glued on – LOLSOB!) and then pre-prepped the wall for filler/patching, base coat and sanding. He then tiled 25 square feet of wall, painted all of the other walls multiple times (including the stairs to the basement and part of the hallway), built the island and put up new light fixtures. Meanwhile, the kids and I took the cabinet doors outside and sanded and painted them. I am making it sound so easy but quite frankly, it was a ton of work and Mr. Tucker spent most of his non-working, non-family care time working on it. But on a positive note: the cabinet doors don’t hit the light fixtures now!
We also purged and organized a lot of the stuff we had in the kitchen, relegating some stuff downstairs (holiday items like cookie tins, mason jars and a pan large enough to fit a turkey), selling some higher-end items and putting some stuff up on our local Buy Nothing group. I still need to do a few things such as sell the Ikea Kallax storage we had in the kitchen but overall we have set things up to be way more efficient than it had been.
With new closed storage of the island, we now are able to hide things that once looked like it was overflowing from baskets and piled on surfaces. We also bought some Ikea organizing pieces – such as a few knife holders for a drawer and shelves so we could store mugs and dishes on two levels within a cupboard. I will also admit that we splurged on plants, plant pots and some hanging acrylic shelving for the windows. I also received a free fern and a free palm tree from people in the neighbourhood.
The challenge is that if it were up to me, we would have a bright & colourful quirky kitchen with green or yellow cabinets. If it were up to Mr. Tucker, we would have a cold, modern and dark industrial kitchen. These are two fundamentally opposite styles so we decided to settle on a classic white look: something not too trendy so that it doesn’t look dated in a few years but also something we can jazz up with pockets of colour and personalized decorative bits. It looks pretty sterile now but I am sure as the days go on and we bring more herbs inside and find hangers for our dish towels & put up some art, it will warm up a bit.
At the end of the day, this is what we spent:
To be honest, we had to compensate for some lack of knowledge with money. Because the walls were in bad shape, when Mr. Tucker tried to prime them they bubbled up. So he ended up running out and buying a special sealer to rectify that. We probably could have found an alternative (we did watch some videos that suggested diluted white glue) but we are always pushing the boundaries of time/money/life so I consider that a learning tax. Overall, the paint and tiles make up the largest category at 42.4%, the new lights and the island were about 34.2% of the cost, and the decorative items were 23.4%. As the kids say: I’m not mad about it. Considering we got a quote for $9000 for a small (2×5) backsplash and to replace two countertops (bathroom and kitchen, less than 5 ft each) last year in the condo – and that guy wanted to tile over the backsplash tiles that were already there – I consider this a solid deal. Besides, we got to learn new skills and have the satisfaction of finishing a DIY project.
The one thing I did not factor into the costs was out Tool Library Membership. I suppose for accuracy’s sake we could toss on a little over 1/3 of that cost for $100 adding to the total here. But honestly, we get an OTL membership every year and it is difficult to price out the value of it because it depends on what we borrow and how many classes we take there. So I decided to leave it out. We feel that the OTL is a super important resource for our community so even if we didn’t use it at all one year, we would still pay for it.
In the end, I am pleased as punch with how it turned out. I had never noticed how reluctant I was to spend any time in that dark gray kitchen. But the kids love the new island and sit at the bar stools (Ikea – $20 each!) and chat with us when we are making dinner. Behold, the glory of the new kitchen:
(Yeah, I could have maybe tidied and staged it better for the final photos but this is real life, not instagram)
Books in the Big Yellow Taxi
There is a short story I read once about how Canada didn’t have a lot of famous authors because it was a cold country. I don’t remember much else except that I a> read it as part of my coursework either in university OR high school; b> it was in an anthology of short stories; c> for years I thought it was by Stephen Leacock. I have poured through Leacock’s collections, quizzed my librarian friends and have even begged on social media for someone to help me remember what this story was from. So far, nothing.
But in that process, I realized how fickle the world can be. Stephen Leacock was a HUGELY famous in his time, widely regarded as the world’s best humourist who went on to inspire other famous people such as Groucho Marx. Today though, probably the only reason we know of him is because of the required reading of Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town in high school. While I wouldn’t say he’s completely disappeared from literary scene, I feel that Leacock is only known to a contemporary audience because of the requirement to take Canadian Literature classes in high school & university. It’s the same CanCon phenomenon that makes the CBC turn out fantastic shows like Schitt’s Creek and Kim’s Convenience. I’m not mad about it.
I was disappointed – but not surprised – by the ruling against The Internet Archive recently. I suppose eventually it may end up like Napster – too visionary for its time and replaced by the bottom-feeding capitalism of Spotify who is lauded for what Napster was condemned for doing. In fact, the new partnership with google probably signals that very thing, exactly as now google will have its finger in yet another piece of our collective pie.
Still, bright lights exist. Today, I loved reading Vanishing Culture: on the impact of forgotten books by Brad Bigalow. It turned me onto his Recovered Books project. I love that people are out there preserving history and culture by bringing old works to the surface again.
My friend Sara argues with me about modern books, preferring to read works that stand the test of time. Her perspective is that, “Time is a sieve, and it weeds out irrelevant works.” But not all art and culture needs to be relevant 100 years from now. They can be perfect for helping people navigate the here & now and still be worth engaging with! Conversely, I also agree with AJ Jacobs in his book Breaking Bread With the Dead that we shouldn’t throw out all historical works just because they don’t align with our modern sensibilities, instead we should engage with them, be challenged by them. No need to give up the modern invention of the shower NOR throw the baby out with the bathwater. As the internet asks, “Why not both?”
I was surprised to see the Five Little Peppers and How They Grew in the Recovered Bookstore. I had this book as a child growing up in the 80s and it never occurred to me that it hadn’t really been a part of the modern bibliography, until now. But I guess it is the way of a lot of art and media: you don’t know what you’ve got til it’s gone.
PS: Incidentally, my friend Angela has been looking for a copy of Pump Up the Volume forever. She mentioned it was one of her fav movies of the 90s and wanted to rewatch it to see if it still held up. She mentioned that she couldn’t find it anywhere. I also tried to find it and noticed that it wasn’t anywhere: not on video websites, not on streaming services, not even on torrent sites! But low and behold – The Internet Archive has copy of it. HASHTAG BLESS.
Well in my day, sonny boy, we had this thing called RADIO…