Browsed by
Tag: house

Kitchen reno results!

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)

Renovation inflation

Renovation inflation


Office real estate photos from our home’s listing in 2017

I have recently become obsessed with Alexandra Gater’s YouTube channel. She does a lot of budget-friendly & small space home décor and DIY projects and I especially love her StudioFix episodes. Having lived in a 530sq ft box in the sky with Mr. Tucker and a large dog, I would have appreciated more content like this in the early N’aughties. She points out that most home décor content is aspirational (and for most of us, unattainable) but it is very easy to change things up on a budget. There are some great ideas in her videos for people of all abilities and at the very least, the videos will show you how very small things can brighten up a space. Bonus: she’s in Canada and lists products we can get here.

Our kitchen is very small, especially for people who actually use their kitchen for cooking. We have a wheeled sideboard for extra prep space, which is a pain in the butt because it blocks the window & we also have a Kallax unit from Ikea that divides up the space. After watching the AG videos, Mr. Tucker and I decided to replace these storage units with a kitchen island that has closed storage to open up our space a little & keep untidy things hidden. The kitchen will look better with less furniture crammed in it, less clutter will bring more light into a small space and we won’t have things piled up all over the floor or overflowing from the baskets in the Kallax.

But as I kept watching AG turned me onto companies who sell pre-painted replacement cabinet doors for Ikea kitchens. My mind was blown that these places existed! Since we have a tired, old Ikea kitchen (that was repainted before we got here. Think: this style) I thought it would be fun to investigate this as an option. I first started by measuring all of our cabinet doors. I then hit the Ikea site to see if they sold replacement door fronts. Sadly, that was a dead end: I could only find a few door front sizes. So I went to the websites that AG had recommended – and we discovered local companies who also did the same thing, so we also started researching those as an option. That didn’t last long though because most doors were $200 or more! We have TWENTY-THREE doors and drawer fronts in our kitchen. So we scratched that. Miss #1.

Next up, we found people who would custom make doors for a lot less than the above companies. But even then, these were also expensive and had shipping costs. Miss #2. Finally, miss #3 was when Mr. Tucker figured he could make some doors using his Tool Library Membership and booking some time in their studio and…at this point it was clear that the entire idea of a low-cost, low-time DIY was getting away from us. Our lives are busy enough, we don’t need to add any more HUGE projects to our chores.

We were suffering from Renovation Inflation aka, “we are already doing X, may as well do Y as well…” except for Y is an infinite number of projects, if you don’t check yourself. It is also how you end up spending more money, “well, we’re already paying $500 for a kitchen island, what’s a couple of doors?”

In the end, we sat down and really thought about changes that would make a huge difference in our lives and the biggest one? Paint. Our kitchen is a two-toned gray colour that darkens the entire space. So the walls needed to be painted. The cabinet doors are fine, as in, they are functional and not falling apart (ok, that one cutlery drawer is hot garbage). So in the end, we decided that we could probably get an entire kitchen refresh with a coat of paint. Even if we buy the REALLY GOOD cabinet paint a gallon of that will still be less than one cabinet door. Will it be as fancy? No. Will it be more modern? Still no. Will it brighten up the kitchen and make us happy? Yes.

Since we are saving money on the refresh we also decided to get rid of the metal peel-and-stick tile that was used in the kitchen. It’s super dark & dated and worse, it is peeling in places which could be a concern for water damage. Not only is it on the back splash behind the sink and stove but the previous owner also created a band around the entirety of the kitchen and the basement half-wall. Sadly, as Mr. Tucker started to remove it we realized that it was GLUED ON & taking it off is pulling some drywall down with it.

The plan is to start by filling the large chunks before sanding and painting. We will lay real tile (white, subway – we are pretty basic) behind the stove and sink (with the help of a local handyman) and the entire family will sand and paint the cabinet doors next weekend. Unfortunately, all of the doors and the walls will need to be cleaned with degreaser first before any of the actual painting can get started. We are hoping to do that in the evenings.

I feel like (despite the real estate photos) our kitchen is grey and cold and painting it white will give us a lot more light in the space. I am not looking for a super fancy renovation here, I want a usable kitchen that is bright and airy and where the windows aren’t half-covered by cabinets due to lack of storage.

Here is what it looks like right now:


The room is actually 9’3″ x 10’2″ – so, tiny

Here is what we are doing:
– Ditching broken storage (Kallax and cheap movable island)
– Removing old metal peel-n-stick tile
– Painting the entire kitchen white (walls and cabinets)
– Tiling the back splash on two walls with real tile
– Replacing the old light fixtures
– Putting in a closed storage island

I think in the end it is easy to let your imagination run wild with renovation inflation. But if you stop and breathe for a second and figure out what you truly need to refresh a space, the answers are usually small: a new coat of paint, some new cabinet knobs, a new ceiling light. I suspect the entire refresh of our kitchen will cost us less than 4 cabinet doors from one of those replacement door companies.

Check back in a week and a bit and I will let you know how it goes (with price breakdown).

The Puddle

The Puddle


Connell: not a swimmer

When we were in the process of buying a house, I knew I wanted either a> a pool; b> enough space to install a pool. Of course, anyone who heard me say this immediately clutched their pearls and screeched, “A pool isn’t a selling point for potential future buyers! What about property values?!”

To which I say: I do not give a flying f&%k about property values. This is my home. It is a safe place to live and raise my family. While it is theoretically an asset, I just see it as a roof over my head. A paid-off roof over my head, which is nice.

I know it is du rigeur to inflate ones’ net worth by counting it in as a part of a calculation – which makes sense – but it also gives me big, “statistics lie” vibes. I need somewhere to live, and for now this is the place I want to be. After all, I need to live somewhere*. Yes, it is an asset I can sell if I need to but it isn’t something that I plan to draw down – unlike my portfolio, which has future spending in mind. Of course, downsizing is always on the table for the future but even in that case I will probably still own property.

I know the pearls are being clutched even harder here so I will explain.

As I’ve mentioned previously, renting is a great idea if you have money and are able-bodied. Saving money on renting vs. owning is a very smart idea if you run the numbers and figure you can make more on investments. But I posit that people who are disabled and people who are very poor should own if they can. In the first case, there are very few accessible rentals available. In the second case, it is forced savings (if you stress test your situation well).

I know that sounds weird but if the pandemic has taught us anything it is that 30 years of shitty housing policy in this country has jacked up both rents and house prices well past the point where it can be safely only 30% of your income for many people. Even in my province people who have rent control of some sort are seeing inflated renovictions. Smalltime landlords found an amazing opportunity to sell off when housing prices boomed in 2022. This led to long-term tenants seeing themselves shuffled out as families bought these home to actually live in them, not to be landlords. During this period, rents also saw an explosion and a 1-bedroom apartment is now $2000 leaving many people with very few options.

If you have money, you can just brush off your knees and find the best option available, safe in the knowledge that all of those years of cheap rent have bolstered your portfolio. But if you are living on a fixed income or living near the poverty line, that limits your options substantially. If you are disabled you are probably the most screwed because there is such a lack of accessible housing that the availability of an accessible apartment is almost NIL.

Which brings us back to why I choose to own.

You know what else brings down property values? An accessible bathtub. Although it cost me $15000 to install it will bring down my property price if I go to sell. Again though: I have to live here! I installed it because I love baths and wanted to have the option to have one when I wanted to. I also have grab bars and ramps and other things that a landlord probably wouldn’t look to favourably at me installing in a rental.

So quite frankly, let’s just toss the pool into the fray of things that add IMMEASUREABLY to my quality of life that also bring my property values down. Because really, I don’t care. I want to enjoy my home, raise my family here, host pool parties here, and have a life full of memories here.

The naysayers will probably point out just how ridiculous it is to have a pool in Canada, where you can only have a pool open about 6 months of the year and only during 4 of those months is it nice enough to swim with any regularity. To those folks I say: wussies! You can swim anytime if you have enough fortitude! But also: you have a good point. If we are looking at things from a purely financial point of view, The Puddle costs me about $3000 a year to maintain (current year expenses + savings for when things break down). That makes it about $188 a week for the 4 truly swimmable months ($125 for the full 6). Many people would see that and balk because they don’t want the work and cost of maintaining an inground pool. That is fair. But you will take my Puddle away from my cold, dead hands.

Considering that I spent $13000 for a week at the world’s worst all-inclusive, swim-up room, “Diamond Club” hotel in March, The Puddle is a deal. I spent that week surrounded by crowds and had mediocre food and sad service (I also have a few pointers about how to maintain a pool properly). It was the least relaxing vacation we have ever had, and it made me realize just how wonderful having a backyard oasis really is!

The past week Mr. Tucker has been on vacation and it has been amazing. We have spent the day outside for a good 12 hours every day it wasn’t raining. We’re writing, we’re reading books, we’re drinking beers and just chilling out. Also, when we are in the pool we have complete privacy as no one can see us. I get up in the morning, toss on a bathing suit and a sundress, grab a coffee and my journal and head outside into the morning sun. It’s the perfect start to a summer day. The best part is that we can also play our own music at reasonable levels, as we are old people. Also, we get to share The Puddle with friends. We had about 40 people pop in for a Canada Day BBQ and we will do a crafting and swim night with friends next week. This year we even stuck a beer fridge outside so that we can access drinks and snacks easily.

Sure, I could live somewhere else, somewhere cheaper, somewhere less enjoyable and save a pile more cash. But I’ve done my time in cheap student apartments and while I am grateful for that experience & learning the skills to be able to live on very little, I don’t need to do that anymore. I am at the point in my life where I value having a stable home for my kids and an accessible bungalow for me (with a bathtub and a pool!) more than I value more money in the bank. There was a point in my life where I couldn’t imagine not wanting to travel every year. The last couple of trips have taught me that maybe staying home for a few years is perfectly ok. Maybe sometimes it’s good to just stop and appreciate where you are.

*Not necessarily here but selling a house is difficult; it’s a very illiquid asset. Yes, I could borrow against it, if need be.

Alternative housing is – and isn’t – for me

Alternative housing is – and isn’t – for me

I love alternative housing. I soak up Tiny Home content and have for about 10 years now. I love YouTube channels who feature people who have dug homes into a side of a hill, those who have converted old churches and apartments with swinging walls, My absolute favourite are the people who live on longboats on the English canal system (The Canal Archive has the lovliest historical photos). It completely tickles my fancy to see people come up with the most creative and innovative ways to live.

I got completely hooked on Ben Fogel’s New Lives in the Wild (people outside of the UK may need a VPN). It’s a bit more extreme than living in a trailer or converting a small NYC apartment but a lot of the episodes are fun to watch. Another great show was called How to Live Mortgage-Free that even saw an inventor converting a double decker bus for his family – including elevators for his disabled wife. I love this kind of content because I enjoy seeing people flip convention on its head and forge their own paths. Does it always work? No. Would I ever do something like this? Also, no.

Here is the thing: life is already difficult enough being disabled (with an unknown future trajectory*, to boot) that I am more than happy to stay in my cozy, mid-century modern bungalow that has no mortgage. If I had less money or more energy/talent/access to a ton of free, able-bodied labour I would probably seek out other arrangements. But currently, the plan is to stay exactly where I am. While I love the idea of roughing it the reality is that I get out-of-sorts at the mildest inconvenience so we have to play the cards we are dealt: bungalow, in a city, it is.

I realize that for a lot of people these forays into alternative housing is much less fun than it is a necessity. While we cheer for the dark sweetness of the Lady in the Van the reality is probably more like Nomadland. Anyone who has been in the Bay area in the past 10 years have most probably noticed the uptick of people who live in motorhomes. Once an anomaly in most cities, even the smaller, less popular towns are seeing an uptick in people who live in vehicles. In my city, houselessness has become endemic in the core and even in my sleepy area there are folks camping in the parks and along the Greenbelt. There is a very real housing crisis since for 30 years now governments have divested from community housing**.

As much as I romanticize living on a boat it sounds incredibly difficult, especially with a child. I wonder if the savings would make it worthwhile?

Still, a friend’s father has just finished a stint plant sitting for other friends in Toronto while they were in California for the winter. House sitting is a pretty fun gig in high-COLA areas but I suspect it wouldn’t be for me.

I would like to think of the 2010s the years where Digital Nomads made their mark on the world but it isn’t for everyone. I suspect trying to balance work with relaxation just makes everything seem like work. I much prefer the idea of slow travel.

Finally, a lovely essay on how leaving home may no longer be a right-of-passage for younger folx. I honestly have planned for my own children to stay in town for University, but it may even be longer should things on the housing scene not improve.

But I do admit, I still am tickled by people who can make VanLife work:

I don’t know what the future holds for us. Will we sell and rent an apartment? Buy a condo? Will the kids live in the house and we will build an ADU? Who knows! It probably wont involve a longboat or a converted Sprinter Van, however.

Have a lovely weekend!


*Yes, yes. We all have unknown trajectories but every day is probably the best day I am ever going to have unless someone finds a cure for motor neuron diseases.

**All of them. At all levels.

What makes a home & chore theory

What makes a home & chore theory

What I’m reading
Children of homeowners twice as likely to own homes themselves.

Almost 40% of US homeowners own their homes outright as of 2022—many of them baby boomers who refinanced when rates were low.

The list of brain conditions that have been associated with changes elsewhere in the body is long and growing. Changes in the make-up of the microorganisms resident in the gut, for example, have been linked to disorders such as Parkinson’s disease and motor neuron disease.The brain and body are intertwined.

A thought piece
This is a FANTASTIC piece: how your house makes you miserable. “How do you make your home entirely your own — a reflection of your good taste! — while also making it wholly acceptable to the market-reflected gaze? The only solution is to make the market-inflected taste your taste. And that experience can be incredibly alienating, particularly when you convince yourself that you’re doing a remodel that you’re going to love, spend a ton of time and energy on it, and then look around and think meh.”

When we bought our house a friend of mine said to me, “Yeah, we looked at that house but it needed so many renovations to make it liveable.” WHAT? This house was in perfect condition when we bought it and in the 6 years we’ve lived here we have few problems (the oven died but it was original to the house – 1962!). We did do some cosmetic work to the house such as tear up all of the white carpet and refinish the hardwood underneath. We also installed laminate throughout the basement (again, white carpet) as well as replace the vanity in the main bathroom to a two-sink Ikea one for the kids & replaced the linoleum with tile flooring. Overall though, we only spent about $1500 in those cosmetic changes. Conversely, I think this friend wanted to turn this mid-century bungalow into a modern showpiece which would have required tearing down walls, putting in marble counters etc. We liked it just the way it was.

Sure our cabinets are crappy 80s ones that have been painted white and we unfortunately have popcorn ceilings (which people apparently hate but I am neutral on the subject). I just think that not everything has to look like it’s about to be featured on HGTV. I remember my friends and I all living in a bunch of old, crummy apartments with weirdly angled ceilings and wonky closet doors. All of these places had charm because they were each vastly different from each other. We also used to decorate with a mish-mash of found items interspersed with Ikea furniture and every place was so different from another one.

I guess renovating the condo has put this to the forefront of my mind because a condo is a different beast. A friend of ours had suggested that we just sell it “as is” with all the smoke damage, the yellow paint, shitty cabinets and no appliances. But I think people expect more of a turnkey experience with a condo where a house is more of a place that you would accept some imperfections in exchange for the location, land and bones of the place. The condo cabinets and the counters *do* look dated which is a pain when you are trying to sell. But I am loathe to tear them out and do a full reno because a> it’s wasteful; b> the people who buy it may just tear it all out and reno themselves anyway. I abhor the idea of wasting all that time and money only to have it all tossed into the garbage. So we’ve mostly focused on replacing the damaged bits, did smoke remediation, tossed on a coat of fresh paint and bought new appliances.

I think as well that we view our house as our HOME and not an investment. So we don’t care to be constantly updating it. It’s also why I installed a sit-down tub instead of a roll-in shower. Yes, the tub was very expensive AND it will reduce the value of the home should we put it on the market. But so what? I plan to have my corpse dragged out of here and during my (hopefully long) lifetime I will get a lot of enjoyment out of being able to take a bath whenever I want.

Child labour
We asked the kids if they would like to clean the house on the weekend for the same amount of money we pay the housecleaner. The reason why is because The Eldest had Covid last week and so we told the cleaner not to come (clearly!) but the house still needed a good once-over. They were really excited about earning money and The Youngest was even more excited to learn that the money I offered was for EACH of them and not SPLIT between them. Haha. Crap, I could have paid them even less! 😉

The kids did a FANTASTIC job – as good or even better than our housecleaner does. I was thoroughly impressed. To be fair, we used to clean as a family and so they have had years of practice. But post-pandemic with all of the busy-ness and my health we decided that having someone come and clean every two weeks was worth the money.

My kids have always had unpaid chores. From the time they were toddlers at the end of the day we would play music, dance around and put our toys away before dinner. This was to get them into the habit of tidying, not because they were good at it. Us parents did most of the actual tidying but over time they grew into the habit of actually putting their stuff away at the end of the day and then we just built on that.

By 6 & 8 they learned how to do the basics of cleaning by doing it with us, and by 10 & 12 they knew how to clean the entire house. That isn’t to say that the adults didn’t take on the majority of the work at first but over time they slowly did more and more on their own until we did none. They still do tidying in between the housekeeper visits as well as washing the dishes every night. We’ve also taught them some basic dishes that they can cook on their own. The Youngest in particular has been asking to learn more about cooking, so we are taking the time to teach them how to cook a variety of meals.

The one chore we actually pay the kids to do is folding and putting away my laundry. Mr. Tucker’s office is right next to the laundry room so he generally washes the clothes during the week so that by the weekend it’s all clean and in baskets. So on the weekend, they have to separate and fold/put away the household stuff (ie: towels and sheets) as well as do their own. Mr. Tucker is super picky so his is left and just does it when they are done.

In a sense, being disabled has really helped with teaching kids how to do chores. Children can be the masters of strategic incompetence when they don’t want to do something. So many parents just throw up their hands and do the task because ensuring a child learns how to do a chore can take twice as long and is way more stressful. But in my situation, I had no choice. I had to work through the process of them resisting learning how to do things because I just could not physically do them anymore. Of course, we are now all better off: the kids 100% have the skills to feed themselves and maintain a home and Mr. Tucker and I don’t have to struggle doing all the house stuff.

What’s even better is that they are proud of their skills. The Youngest came home once and told me that none of their friends were forced to do chores at home*. Their friends were saying things such as, “Why do you have to do anything? I don’t have to do any chores and I still get an allowance!” & The Youngest replied, “Because I live there for free? It’s only fair that I help out. Besides, I have the skills to live on my own now and you don’t.**” I was pretty impressed with that answer because it’s an astute observation for a 13-year-old to make I live there for free and it’s only fair that I help out.

We had planned to take up most of the housecleaning ourselves when Mr. Tucker retired but both kids said that they were happy to get paid to deep clean the house. So we may end up paying them to do the deep clean once-a-month instead. They like earning the money, they do a great job and since we generally manage to keep the house tidy enough in between deep cleans, it will work out for everyone. Of course, the time will come when they will be too busy with school and their own jobs. But then Mr. Tucker and I can take it back over.

Hope you are having a lovely Tuesday!

*The Eldest has also said this. It’s up for debate as to whether or not that is the truth. I am sure many kids have responsibilities.
**Ok, a bit rude and I also learned the trial by fire way when I first moved out and I wouldn’t recommend it.

We paid off the mortgage!

We paid off the mortgage!


Mr. Tucker opening the door of our home the day we got the keys

Our plan has always been to pay off the mortgage as soon as possible. Partially, it was because Mr. Tucker said that he would feel more comfortable with the guaranteed payoff but also as the prime rate got higher and higher it just made sense. We were set to renew for another term this September and we knew we wouldn’t get that sweet 2% interest that we’ve had for the past six years. So we rolled up our sleeves, didn’t take a vacation this winter, and we funneled every extra cent into savings.

Yesterday, Mr. Tucker walked into the bank, handed them a cheque, and walked out with our payout and discharge noted. He felt great.

Eyes are going to roll if I bring up the rent vs. own debate here and drill down into the financial quagmire of it all. Honestly, people who are smarter than me have done a great job of discussing the nitty gritty. What I am going to do though is discuss my own thought process because as a disabled person I feel like that changes a lot of my decision making. So let’s go for it:

Renting isn’t throwing your money away: that’s like saying that we shouldn’t eat because some of it lands in the sewage system. Shelter – like food – is a need, and you need to have shelter. Many of my friends rent and it suits them just fine because they don’t have to deal with the hassle of home ownership. But that brings me to the untold story about renting…

A lot of my friends who rent are either well off or very poor: let’s face it, the buy vs. rent debate can only really happen for people who have the privilege to make the choice. My rich friends rent because the premium on their time and money is important to them and my poor friends rent because they have absolutely zero choice in the matter.

During the pandemic when housing prices exploded, I saw friends get evicted because their landlords sold their properties. In our province, your rent is controlled under certain circumstances so if you live somewhere a long time your rent will be much lower than current market rents. But in a situation where home prices and rents start soaring, you risk eviction into a high-priced market. If you have a good income you probably will be mildly irritated but if you are a low wage worker or you are on disability, your options are very, very limited. Since we have a housing crisis in Canada right now being a low-income renter must be terrifying. Renovictions and other sneaky tactics are at an all time high and they can take years to resolve with the Landlord-Tenant Board. I think the stress would break me.

Disabled people also tend to be poorer and being poor can sometimes mean bad credit or no credit. Getting a rental without a credit check is really difficult in 2023.

Finding an accessible rental is near impossible: when you are able bodied and have money, you have a world of options. You can rent a small shithole and save a fortune. When you are a wheelchair-user, for example, you need more room and more accommodations within the house from shorter counters to handrails and benches in a roll-in shower. More room costs more money and few landlords would pay to renovate a current space. Your options are generally subsidized or co-op housing but that could mean years on a waitlist.

Even for disabled people who have the money to buy a home, the costs can quickly spiral. Developers are generally not keen to change things even if you bought a condo from plan, which means you will be on the hook for renovations to make it habitable. If you buy a pre-owned home, renovations generally are needed too.

Why don’t you just move to a lower cost of living area!?: this is decent advice for people who have the option but for someone like me who has a bunch of specialists who know my needs, accessing health care in another area may not be as easy. For those of us who spent years getting a diagnosis and who have built solid relationships with their care team won’t want to risk having to restart the process in a new area and risk getting a care team that doesn’t suit our needs. For example, a friend of mine with a heart condition has considered moving to the country but right now he is an 8 minute drive from the Heart Institute. Would you risk not having the care you needed in a crisis?

Which brings us to the fact that most hospitals and specialists tend to be concentrated in urban centres of large cities that are accessible by public transit. Most disabled people use some sort of public transit to get around as private hires can be costly and the options are limited.

I like to give my kids stability: I have read some stories about how people moved around a lot as kids and were fine with it. I am glad they had a positive experience or a higher purpose that made it worthwhile. I had to move thrice as a kid and I hated it. I really wished for some kind of stability in my life. When we moved to our current home, the Youngest struggled a lot as well. They had a really hard time adjusting and were really upset about moving.

Of course, things happen and there are myriad reasons that families are forced to move – both negative and positive. But it was a priority for Mr. Tucker and I to give our kids a home and so we made that happen. If something happens to Mr. Tucker and I am left with the kids in our bungalow, I can manage because…

We make continuous accessibility improvements: when it became harder and harder for me to step into the tub, we installed an accessible tub. Because our backyard has a lot of steps, we hired a carpenter to build ramps. As the years go on we don’t know how mobility will be because everyone with PLS is different. So as owners, we can adjust our home as necessary and…

We get tax credits related to accessibility improvements: so when we do renovate to make our home more user friendly for me, we do get some tax credits for it.


If the housing crisis continues, we can renovate for our kids: the vacancy rate is under 2% and the average one-bedroom condo is renting for $2000 a month in our city. Who knows what the future holds as we bring many new (much needed!) immigrants into the country over the next few years? I suspect that it will get worse before it gets better and that housing prices won’t see a drop but more of a stagnation or small increase.

On our property we could theoretically renovate our basement to put in a two-bedroom apartment as well as build a coach house in the backyard. If our kids needed a place to go, we could do that. If we found ourselves suddenly needing more income, we could rent out some space. I like the idea that we have a property that gives us options. Or, if need be we could always…

Sell the house if we need money someday: I don’t like the saying, “My house is the best investment I have ever made!” Because most of the time the people who say it will admit that it is usually one of the only investments they have ever made. Having said that, it is still worth something. While I wanted a home to put down roots and raise a family the time may come when I am forced to move on and selling our home may end up paying for Long Term Care.

We were lucky in the fact that we were able to save for our kid’s education, Mr. Tucker’s RRSPs AND were able to still pay off the house. The flip side of that is that I know folks who wanted the stability of a home to raise their families but didn’t have much in the way of other savings after that because their salaries were so much lower. People also may be risk adverse (often, we forget that not everyone is as interested in this stuff as we are). So they get the stability of raising a family for many years, paying off their mortgage as they go along and when it comes time to retire, they sell the home and use that as their retirement money.

Sure, it may not be the best option for the finance nerds who optimize every penny but the reality is that most people aren’t optimizers looking for ways to eek out a percentage point more from their investments. They like safe bets* and paying off a mortgage is a safe bet to them.

I think rent vs. own comes down to your own personal priorities and preferences (if you have options). I always find these conversations about GOOD vs. BAD disingenuous because as we all know: personal finance is personal. Also – and as much as the FinBros think it doesn’t – feelings matter! You need to be comfortable with your decision and be able to sleep at night.

For Mr. Tucker he really, really, really wanted to pay off the house and so we worked on that even though for the majority of the time we saved, we would have made way more on an index fund. In retrospect with the prime rate being so high it was a smart move to not have to renew in September at an exorbitant rate but we didn’t have a crystal ball: it was a decision made purely because it worked for us.


Home, sweet home


*I am definitely not entertaining the “bUt It iSn’T rEaLlY, lOoK aT mY dEtAiLeD sPrEaDsHeEt…” Yes, inflation is a thing. Yes, they could probably make more in an index fund but if they WON’T do that because human psychology being human psychology, this is at least something.

The shocking realization you’ve reached your goals

The shocking realization you’ve reached your goals

Tax season brought us a huge refund which we will use to payoff the mortgage

I realized this week that some personal finance adages are true. I suppose that I always knew this intellectually but I managed to say this out loud (and by “out loud” I really mean, “in a Signal chat”) this week and once I said it, the weight of what I had accomplished came into sharp focus.

So let’s start at the beginning.

Mr. Tucker’s work was recently acquired by another company. This required him to sign a whole new slew of legal documents, some of which were a bit unclear. Fortunately for me though, I have a friend who is an incredibly brilliant employment lawyer who is licensed to practice in Ontario AND in California. Those are two very challenging jurisdictions to get licensed in (and she has a ton of experience with tech companies) so clearly, the woman is a GD genius. Luckily for me, she is also a lovely friend who read all of Mr. Tucker’s new documents before he signed them.

When all was said and done, she asked me about how things were looking for him at work, personally…and that’s when I took stock and realized that … IT DOESN’T MATTER! We are finally at a point in our lives that while it would be shitty, a layoff wouldn’t decimate our finances.

Having her ask that question made me go through our accounts and made me realize the following:

– Our mortgage will be paid off by July (two months before schedule!). The house is currently worth high 6 figures.
– Mr. Tucker’s retirement accounts will meet our target by the end of 2023.
– Any layoff would result in a severance enough to carry us through to the end of the year.
– The kid’s RESPs are currently funded enough to get them a 4-year undergrad degree + books at a local university. We’re still funding it but even if we stopped putting money in it today, they’d still be fine!
– We are currently mostly living off my income, which is private disability insurance indexed to inflation until I am 65.
– I have a small pension + lifetime benefits (Mr. Tucker would get half of it should I die as well as half of my CPP and the kids would get an orphan’s benefit as well until they are out of school).
– On top of regular tax shelters, I also have an RDSP which gives me 100% return on investment via government grants until I am 49 (and can grow tax-free in investments until I am 59).
– Should either of us pass away, we have sufficient life insurance and investments to carry the surviving spouse and the children.
– We have a secondary property that is currently rented to a family member at-cost but that has a mortgage on it at around 1/3rd of its value.

When I wrote all of this in a message I realized quickly that even though I had spent some time worrying about the company acquisition, there really is nothing to worry about. While we wouldn’t be living high on the hog, the decisions we made have been good ones.


We do a monthly game night with friends but for Easter we decorated eggs

So, those true adages? Consistency does beat intensity AND time in the market beats market timing. Let’s look at one example, our kid’s education savings accounts:

Consistency beats intensity
I didn’t end up opening an RESP until my eldest was around 3 (12 years ago). Up until 2020 we could only afford to fund it to the tune of $80 a month ($40 each) because we had a pretty high child support payment and I stayed at home with the kids until the eldest was 4.

But what we did do when they were younger was that we asked family members to give us money for their RESPs instead of buying gifts for various holidays. So for about 5 or 6 years (until they wanted to spend their birthday & Christmas money), we were able to throw in an extra $150 twice a year for their education.

Time in the market beats timing the market
When I go back and look at what we put in vs what we actually have, we see an almost 40% increase over the last 12ish years (investments + grants – so 20% each) in the original accounts (we do still fund these with the same $80 monthly).

Conversely, we also started a new RESP in 2020 using a Robo-advisor because we wanted to play catchup on our contributions and get the grants for previous years. In those 40 months we have seen a 24.6% return in that account – 20% of which is grants, so really we have only made 4.62% on our money since 2020. Not bad (but not great) considering how awful it’s been.

So even though we have been putting more away every month the long game has paid off in spades when you look at the return. We also aren’t done yet, I will continue to put money into the account until we run out of grants available to each kid AND it will also compound for at least another 3 years.

No matter what the market does, we just continue to fund our registered accounts. Dip in the market? Fund it monthly. Market overvalued? Fund it monthly. I just cannot be bothered to think about these things and even through it may or may not be the most perfect way, dollar cost averaging has often been my long term strategy. I used this strategy because it was easier to set up our budget and make savings come out of our accounts every month like a bill rather than have to constantly think about it.


Spring chorin’ has begun

Hoisted by my own petard
I was saying to Mr. Tucker the other night that while we intellectually know that we make good money and have assets, we sometimes feel a bit like money is tight. The reality is though is that we have structured our budget to feed money into two kinds of goals. Regular goals such as putting money away to buy a car with cash every 10 years, education savings, emergency savings etc. Then we also have stretch goals, which is basically saving almost everything Mr. Tucker makes into vacations, retirement accounts and paying off our house early.

So we feel poor sometimes when I have to say, “No, sorry, we are out of pocket money this month so we can’t have take out.” Because really, we live off of a bit over what a median household income is in Canada. But we don’t actually ever have to make really hard decisions, so it’s all in our heads and is guided by our goals. The things we end up denying ourselves is junk food, more subscription services or weird baubles at the dollar store. We don’t deny ourselves the things we really enjoy, such as travel and going to concerts. The kids also have all sorts of cool lessons and activities. But this is self-restriction for a higher goal. We’re actively making choices to deny ourselves shit we don’t really need in order to reach…well, apparently we’ve pretty much reached it…OUR LONG TERM GOALS.

It’s just absolutely wild to me that we can see the finish line after years of just putting in the effort. Of course, Mr. Tucker still wants to work until the end of 2024 but it is nice to know that we have a backup plan should things go south.

It’s so funny that one little question from my friend would lead to such a heavy weight being lifted off of me. But here we are!


Another fine book club was had

When it rains, it pours (in the laundry room)

When it rains, it pours (in the laundry room)

Mr. Tucker has always had a tumultuous relationship with the appliances that came with our house. From my perspective, he has an overly inflated view of how well appliances should function in today’s age. In his view, if you pay that much for something, they should work flawlessly. Truth be told, we’re both partially right.

It started at our old house we replaced our 30-year-old top loader & dryer with an energy efficient Samsung washer & dryer. Within a year we had to call the appliance repair person who basically told us that they were garbage appliances. He came back thrice that year to fix something until finally Mr. Tucker just decided to completely replace the dryer.

Since we had previously had good experiences with Kenmore, the Sears brand, Mr. Tucker decided that we should buy that brand with one caveat: no technology! He wanted an old-school clicky dial and mechanical machine that wasn’t governed by microchips and touchscreens*. When he went to Sears (RIP *snif*) to buy one, the salesperson explained that while their machines had dials that clicked and felt like low-tech, old school versions, they still had microchips and were still riddled with technology. In fact, the chances of getting an appliance there that didn’t have a microchip in it was zero. Still, we bought the cheapest model and it went on to serve us well until we moved out of the house.

To be fair, the man who used to own The Mullet loved this house and put top-of-the-line appliances in. Some (like the Dacor gas range) work amazingly and other ones (the Frigidaire Gallery dishwasher and fridge) not so much. Overall though, the appliances have done us well over the past 5 years in the house. Still, all good things must come to an end and a few things have.

1 – Mr. Tucker gets furious with the ice maker in our refrigerator but it’s the cheap shelves that are the real issue for me. The glass shelves inside the fridge have started to crack their plastic holders, which is frustrating enough but all the door shelves have busted off too. The most exasperating part is that a door shelf is $100 – for like a 6″ x 15″ piece of plastic! That’s just bonkerstown.

2 – The wall oven died slowly over the course of the spring. In its defense, it was original to the house (built in 1962) so it didn’t owe anyone, anything. Avoiding the more common, inexpensive brands we ended up deciding to splurge on a low-tech, higher-quality Italian brand. The cost? Approximately $3000 with installation. Wall ovens are expensive though and a comparable common brand would have been $1500-$2300. We wanted to go with a quality product that would last though and hit the low-middle range of the higher quality products.

3 – Then as we waited for 3 weeks for the oven install, the dishwasher died. At some point we will have our appliance guy out to look at it but until then the kids are washing the dishes by hand. They keep asking when we will have a dishwasher again and Mr. Tucker replies, “But we already have two dishwashers!” He’s definitely in his Dad joke years.

4 – The seal on the clothes washing machine somehow became twisted and we had a small deluge in the laundry room. Thankfully, Mr. Tucker caught it in time & it was something he could fix. Still, after all the other appliance drama I think that was the last straw and had we had to ALSO replace the washer he probably would have just walked out into the woods, never to return.

When we were in the thick of all the appliance drama, one night I tried to explain that unlike previous generations – even our parent’s generation – we tend to have an overly-inflated view of how much free time we should have and how much time we should spend on life tasks. Previous generations did more home and garden maintenance than we do, and even 100 years ago the expectation that you would have any free time was not a given except for a few moments snatched here or there. Life was work from the time you got up until the time you went to sleep. But for those of us who are Gen X or younger, we tend to think of most things outside of our work hours as free time. We hire people to do a lot of the maintenance around the house that previous generations did themselves on the evenings and weekends. So when things break – as they most certainly do in the age of Planned Obsolescence – we get angry at having spent money on things that are costing us precious free time when they were designed to GIVE us more free time.

So maybe that is why we are reluctant to call the appliance repair person yet AGAIN to look at the dishwasher: the kids are washing the dishes and it is working well enough for us so why spend the money? We also made the decision to not replace the shelves in the fridge – although I did float the idea of making some out of wood. I guess the situation isn’t, “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it,” so much as it is, “if it’s broke – do we really need it?” and “if we really need it, can we spend the money on something that won’t break down soon?” My final thought on this is something we should all consider: have I RTFM** and maintained the appliance properly? Chances are, that’s where the issue started.

*Hilarious for a man who works in IT and who used to believe in technology’s power to change the world. As the great Ella Fitzgerald once said, “What a difference a day makes.”
**Read the fucking manual

My RRSP, Mr. Tucker’s RRSP or house payoff?

My RRSP, Mr. Tucker’s RRSP or house payoff?

This is my question of the day: which one of the above should I prioritize, in which order, over the next three years?

Basically we both have contribution room in our RRSPs, and Mr. Tucker is in a tax bracket that is higher than mine, so on the surface it makes sense to prioritize his RRSP for the tax savings. However, I don’t want to use all of his contribution room up in year one and year two and then have him left with not enough to go down a tax bracket in year three.

I think the sensical approach is to a> make the 20% prepayment on the mortgage; b> put enough money into Mr. Tucker’s RRSP to bring him down a tax bracket; and then c> siphon the rest into my RRSP. We can use the tax refund to add to the savings to pay off the house.

I need to make sure I use up all his contribution room over the next 3 years so that he maximizes tax savings. After year 3 he won’t have an income so any savings we can continue to put any savings in our TFSAs and/or my RRSP.

It also means that we will get a larger Canada Child Benefit (CCB) as our gross income will be reduced. I need to make sure that year three his income is really low so that we get a larger CCB in the following year as his income will be zero.

Of course, since we are already living off my income and putting his away, we will already be used to it so it won’t feel any differently (except we won’t be putting a ton of money into savings!).

Anyway – happy Friday! The kids have a PD day so they are off cramming in more device use as they have an extra day in which to do it!