Ian Lindsay & Associates: Ian Lindsay of Lindsay and Associates has played an active role in the local community since 1979. He has been with RE/MAX Vancouver Island's most advanced real estate business network since 1996. Marketing and selling residential, rural, strata, recreational, investment, and project development real estate, you'll find true real estate professionals at ianlindsay.ca.

Rockin' Rhonda: Here comes Peter. Here comes Dave. Oh, listen. Bringing stories, making waves. No missing, spinning tales in the hot podcast cave. So laughs and insights everywhere. What a treat.

Peter McCully: Welcome back to the Pulse Community Podcast. I'm Peter McCully, and spring is settling in nicely here on mid-Vancouver Island. The gardens are calling, the days are getting longer, and people are getting restless in the best possible way.

Dave Graham: I'm Dave Graham and I'm wondering if maybe this is the year that I do something about gardening. Maybe this is the year I try to grow something on purpose. Last year things grew. There were probably weeds, but I say that's just a label. One person's weed is another person's tea. So I say live and let live.

Peter McCully: Well, that's one approach to gardening, Dave.

Dave Graham: In between a bit of research and just making stuff up, I figured what I should try to do here is grow stuff that I can identify. So I went to a garden centre, asked where they kept their hard-to-kill plants, and now I have an entire pot of mint. I am a mint farmer.

Peter McCully: Every journey begins with a single step. Dave, you're on your way to growing your own food, which leads us nicely to mentioning our first guest, Steve Burgess, author of Cheapskate in Lotus Land. It's a fascinating and practical book about living well on less in one of Canada's most expensive cities.

Steve Burgess: If you want to talk about something where I look at it and go, dude, you are not really saving any money with this behaviour, it's the fact that I reuse my dental floss. There you go. A lot of people are very creeped out by that, but it's my mouth. I'm not using someone else's dental floss. It's all going in the same mouth. But when you stop and think, Steve, how much money are you saving by reusing your dental floss? Fractions of a penny. Fractions of a penny.

Dave Graham: Dental floss. Now I know where I've been going wrong all those times that I've been letting those fractions of pennies just fall through my fingers. All those containers with crumbs left in them and cartons with three or maybe even four or five drops of milk remaining. Oh, it's a lot to take in.

Peter McCully: Also coming up, Ralph and Maggie Tietjen from Access Oceanside Association, a nonprofit doing really important work to break down barriers for residents and visitors alike.

Ralph Tietjen: A lot of people have aged into a disability, or are people living with disabilities, and we've done some research on the statistics. And in Parksville Oceanside, it's around 20%. So one in five households have an accessible parking tag. It's like a badge of honour in this area. So if you look at any parking lot and you think of one in five are persons with disabilities in some shape or form — mobility disabilities — the amount of parking spaces around, it's tough to get a spot.

Dave Graham: One in five. That's a number that puts things in perspective. Wow. Once you start looking for accessibility issues, that list grows alarmingly quickly. This is an important story to share. I'm glad we're on it.

Peter McCully: On a future edition of the podcast, we'll hear from Daniela Novak, the CAO of the Qualicum Beach Chamber of Commerce.

Dave Graham: We'll also chat with Aaron Culley Drake. He's an author who will tell us the ups and downs of writing a book using artificial intelligence. Wow, isn't this an interesting time to be alive? Of course, the whole AI experience is still a work in progress, but I'll be interested in hearing about Aaron's experience because my own have been mixed. I'm not trying to write a book. I got AI to assist me in writing a grocery list the other day. All it wanted me to buy was five kinds of breath mints. I don't know what that means.

Peter McCully: We'll also chat with singer-songwriter Roy Forbes, who will be appearing in Port Alberni at Charles Landing. Roy's a BC music legend and a wonderful storyteller. That's a conversation to look forward to.

Dave Graham: I'll tell you about something else — we are eagerly anticipating Sun Fest. The magnificent Lake Town Amphitheatre will be home to this outstanding country music festival and we are giving away tickets. A four-day general pass for two, and it's for a fantastic lineup, including John Party, Tyler Hubbard, Riley Green, and Hannah McFarland.

Peter McCully: To enter, visit our Facebook or Instagram pages, the Pulse Community, or head to our website at thepulsecommunity.ca for details.

Thrifty Foods Parksville: At Thrifty Foods, we love to help non-profits, charities, and schools. Our Thrifty Foods Smile Card bulk program allows organisations to immediately save up to 6% on the purchase of Smile Cards in bulk, allowing you to keep more money in your organisation's pockets. Ask for details at Thrifty Foods in Parksville.

Fireside Books: There's exciting news for book lovers — Fireside Books in Parksville now has a second location in Port Alberni. The Bookwyrm — used books are just $5 or less. The Bookworm on the corner of Redford and Anderson opens seven days a week from 10 to 5. Building your personal library for less, Fireside Books at 464 Island Highway East in Parksville is a book dragon's dream come true. Browse their extensive collections seven days a week. Both locations make growing your personal library easier than ever — new and used books and so much more. Order online at firesidebooks.ca and pick up at either location. Details available online. Ask about returning books for a book credit. Fireside Books and the Bookworm — two locations, one amazing adventure in browsing.

Dave Graham: We can't be the only ones doing all the talking here. We invite you to speak to us. Yes, through the magic of modern technology, you are welcome to leave us a voice message. Tell us about a story you'd like to share, or let us know about a story that you'd like us to look into. Head to our website and click on the contact link.

Peter McCully: Check out our event listings and sign up for our newsletter to keep up to date on guests and contests. We're at thepulsecommunity.ca. We're also on Apple, Amazon, iHeart, Spotify, TikTok, and YouTube, plus Facebook and Instagram. We have a couple of guests coming up here who are helping to make our community more welcoming and more accessible for everyone. Here's Marilyn.

Marilyn: Our next guests are on a mission to make sure everyone in the Parksville Qualicum region can fully participate in community life. Whether that means getting to the beach, finding a place to stay, or simply moving through town with dignity. Ralph and Maggie Tietjen are with Access Oceanside Association, a nonprofit working to raise awareness and break down barriers for residents and visitors alike.

Dave Graham: Welcome to you both to the podcast. It's delightful to be speaking with you today. And perhaps we could start with a description of the organisation's mission in a nutshell, and perhaps, Maggie, if I could start with you, what inspired you to get involved?

Maggie Tietjen: First off, OA is an advocacy group. We work with partners like the City of Parksville, the Downtown Business Association, and we're trying to help remove barriers for residents and for all the visitors that come to see us here in beautiful Parksville. And I got involved after I lost my leg. Our granddaughter came from Montréal to visit and I had to sit on the boardwalk and watch her play in the water, and I was very lonely. I felt isolated. I felt excluded, and I got mad. And when you poke the bear, you're in trouble. So I did a bunch of research, found out about Access Oceanside, and dragged him along with me, and here we are today.

Dave Graham: Him, of course, being Ralph. And I think we just answered the question as to what inspired you to get involved.

Ralph Tietjen: I didn't have much choice, to be honest. When Maggie lost her leg and we started on a journey, started learning what it was all about — how do we get into the house, how do we make the bathroom more accessible? And then all the barriers that we ran into here in town, around Vancouver Island. And it became an eye-opening experience, let's put it that way. Yes, I was interested because I helped Maggie get through the barriers, but that goes on into the community as well.

Dave Graham: Just as an aside, years ago I did local radio and interviewed on many occasions someone on behalf of access, and they would do the annual sort of tour to figure out where there were some issues. And I would've thought in the subsequent years, gosh, they must have taken care of almost everything by now. But obviously we still have some holes. For example, as mentioned, being down on the beach. Ralph, the Mobi Mat piloted Parksville Bay Beach a couple years ago — a real breakthrough. It happened partly because of an unexpected donation. Just what is this mat? How does it work?

Ralph Tietjen: It's a mat made from recycled plastic materials that is, so to speak, non-invasive on the beach. On the surface itself, it grips the sand and the rocks and whatever's down there, and it does not move, but when the tide comes in, it also just floats nice and gently. So it's a very easy, soft way for people to get down onto the beach.

Our problem here in Parksville is we have a great beach, but there's a slope to get down to the hard-pack sand where everybody wants to spend their time in the summer. You have to first cross sand, which is a barrier. For example, for Maggie and her prosthetic leg, she cannot get sand in the leg, so that's a risk right there.

The rocks are a real barrier, be they small or large. Rocks are an unstable surface, different sizes, and it's easy for someone with a disability to lose their footing. People just couldn't get down onto the beach if they had a disability of some kind. I'm going to take that one point farther. At one point down on the beach, I saw an older man walking his dog out on the hard-pack sand, and when he got to the rocks, he picked up his dog, carried him across the rocks, put him down on the sand, and the dog could continue on its way.

So it's not just people, it's also dogs. It's remarkable when you see something like that happen, how it broadens your eyes to what is needed.

Dave Graham: So beyond the beach, what are the other barriers in the area that most people probably won't even notice, but that still significantly impact people with limited mobility on a daily basis?

Ralph Tietjen: Accessible parking. Let's start there. There are not enough parking spaces, and that's partly to do with the bylaws and the existing standards, which are at a very low rate. Normally it's 3% of parking spaces that shall be accessible. And the problem in Parksville is we are an older community. A lot of people have aged into a disability, or are people living with disabilities, and we've done some research on the statistics.

And in Parksville Oceanside, it's around 20%. So one in five households have an accessible parking tag. It's like a badge of honour in this area. So if you look at any parking lot and you think of one in five — persons with disabilities in some shape or form, mobility disabilities — the amount of parking spaces around, it's tough to get a spot.

That's the first area. Uneven sidewalks — cracked, heaving sidewalks. Weld Street in Parksville was a great example of trees with heaving roots lifting up the sidewalks, and that was a really scary place for a person who's not stable. When the city took the step to remove those trees — and they're going to find new ones, I know — the real work was making that a stable, flat surface with wonderful curb cuts.

Now, according to the latest design with touch pads for people with low vision at the corner, it just shows how far the standards have come from where they used to be. So that's one intersection. That's the only spot in Parksville, and there are several more that are barriers. It's mainly the sidewalks, manual doorways.

Can you open the door? Can you get to the door to open it? If there are steps involved, a slope — even the slightest slope for Maggie is perilous, especially coming down. It's a problem. All these things are barriers, but can they all get done right away? That's where money comes in. That's the problem.

Dave Graham: Yes, Access Oceanside has done some really detailed work surveying local accommodations for accessibility. What surprised you most when you started digging into this project?

Ralph Tietjen: That there were accessible accommodations in Oceanside. That was the number one surprise. We travel a lot, and our biggest barrier when we travel is finding accessible accommodation wherever we're going.

Every hotel, they publicise it or they don't. So sometimes it's a hidden room that they don't offer because they reserve it for guests that have disabilities, but if people with disabilities are looking for an accessible room, they don't know that establishment has one. So that's why we took it up and said, let's go to all the main businesses.

We didn't cover the motels so much because they're pretty much a cookie-cutter type of room, so they don't normally have accessible rooms, and we asked, do you have an accessible room? And some do. And so what we did was we toured with the hotel together to go into the rooms and see — okay, we measured doorways.

Does it have a walk-in shower, a roll-in shower? Or is it a sitting tub/shower combination? All these kinds of details that are really important for people with disabilities when they're looking for a place to stay. It's not just a tourist coming in; it's if you're bringing in your grandmother and she needs a particular type of accommodation, where do you go?

So the idea was, let's find out where they all are and give the room numbers. And every place that we worked with, they were just superb about showing us rooms and telling us about what they're doing and what their plans are. I said, the first problem we have is, why don't you tell people you have these rooms?

These rooms will book first if you put them on as an identifiable room category. That was met with some standards resistance, let's put it that way, but I'm hoping that through our website people can start finding these rooms and get more comfortable, and hopefully they'll come back and ask for the same room.

These rooms are important, but they're few and far between. There's normally only one or two per hotel or resort, and they fill up fast.

Dave Graham: You work closely with local government, city councils, regional districts, and tourism associations. How are those relationships going?

Ralph Tietjen: They vary. We have been focused mostly on Parksville.

We have a very good relationship with the City of Parksville. A councillor sits on our committee, acts as a liaison between city council and our association, and brings views back and forth. I have to say, when the opportunity to get the Mobi Mats in on what was really extremely short notice for the city to do something like that, they jumped on board, and I have to give credit to Mayor O'Brien.

He really took it and ran with it within the city council organisation, and we supported him as much as we could — working with the donor, figuring out what we needed, what we thought was the best idea for the installation. That was an example of what can be done if all sides are really pulling hard together.

But things like improving sidewalks — those are multi-year projects and we keep hearing, you wouldn't believe how much it costs to put in a new sidewalk. There are budget constraints. So oftentimes what we try to do is identify what our priorities are. If you have a list of sidewalk projects, these are the ones that you should really look at first.

From a mobility standpoint, tourism has been great. We worked with tourism first on the accommodation survey. They supported us a hundred percent on that, and they have the same information on their website. So I've been working with Lane Staples there. They are also a partner with us for the beach wheelchairs that we got with the same donation.

So one is located at the Beach Club Resort where it's a free rental. People can go there and rent it, take it out onto the beach. For a family member who can't get onto the beach, now they can fully, and they can even float in the water with it in the summer. It's quite cool. So tourism has been great.

Parksville Downtown, with the commercial surveys that we're doing, has been a hundred percent backing us from the beginning, and we're happy to see that accessibility is part of their imagined Parksville initiative. So we're optimistic. We're getting a lot done there.

Dave Graham: As we all know, this area has a high proportion of seniors. Does that demographic reality make conversations about accessibility easier to have with the broader community?

Ralph Tietjen: If you're a senior, sometimes you've grown into your disability. My wife, Maggie, she lost her leg seven years ago. It's not something that was ever expected when we moved here or anything. It just became a fact of life. And it's not just people with permanent disabilities — you hear a lot about knee replacements and hip replacements around here, and that's a disability too.

It can be short term, it can be longer lasting, but it's the same effect for people, and it's a discovery journey for people who are going through that to find out how tough it is sometimes to get around and make your way in the community. But when you put the statistics in front of people — as I mentioned, one in five living with a disability or mobility challenge in our area — that opens some eyes. Definitely.

Dave Graham: So, Maggie, first, what does true inclusion look like to you, and is there a community somewhere here or elsewhere in Canada that Access Oceanside looks to as a model for what's possible?

Maggie Tietjen: We actually drove across Canada in 2022. We took all secondary highways. We booked our hotels months in advance, and even then we would run into things that were not accessible.

We were not wowed by any town that we went to across Canada. They'd try in a park. They would try by whatever attraction they had, but really and truly, there's no perfect out there. We want Parksville to be perfect. This is where you go. If you want to see what inclusion means, go to Parksville.

Dave Graham: In your experience as far as Parksville goes, how far along this journey do you think they are? Are they three-quarters of the way there? Halfway there? Ten percent?

Maggie Tietjen: Maybe 10 or 15. If you want to find a store to go to that's really good — go to a bank, a liquor store. They want you in there. Drug stores and grocery stores.

That's about it. Every place else — oh, we don't own the building. And that's going to be a hard thing. In Europe, they come up with the most innovative ways to get you into a store that's maybe 600 years old. They can do it, but here there's a lot of resistance still. What inclusion means for me is different than for someone on our committee who uses a wheelchair.

I have no problem asking for help. She doesn't think she should have to.

Dave Graham: The Accessible BC Act passed in 2021 requires municipalities to create accessibility plans. Has that legislation changed things on the ground? Ralph?

Ralph Tietjen: I wish I could say yes. I'm a member of the accessibility advisory committee for Parksville, and I'm aware that there's an accessibility advisory team in Qualicum Beach.

So the structures have been set up. Have they accomplished anything other than drafting a plan? Not really. It's hard to quantify right now what, if anything, has changed. There are small grants that came along with the implementation of that Act. I know that in Parksville, that funding was used to make two washrooms fully accessible.

In other words, with door actuators in Springwood Park and in Foster Park. So there's a real example. I know that the city has lots of plans, and when they undertake work, they do always take accessibility into consideration in terms of pathways in the parks — making them connect up and removing any barriers, or redoing the surface to make it more usable for people in mobility devices.

So that's always being done. I mentioned Weld Street earlier. We just asked them to fix the sidewalk because it was a complete disaster. And they did. And the way they structured the curb cut, and with low vision, a capping mat in the corner — that's not something that we asked for, but it's part of the standard today.

So when they get the opportunity, we know that they will take accessibility into consideration. But it's a long, slow process. And in Qualicum Beach there is an accessibility plan, but the plan didn't identify any actions. Maybe now they're going to start looking at actual actions. So really, there has been no lightning bolt of instant accessibility anywhere.

Small actions — which is normally the case for cities — are underway, but there's been no revolution or anything like that.

Dave Graham: Maggie, what role do local businesses play in all of this?

Maggie Tietjen: On one of our trips we took, we met a couple from Italy. He had MS and his wife was pushing him around and he said, why can't I find what I need?

I have money. I want to spend it. I don't think businesses realise that if they make it accessible for me, it helps them. It helps the mom with the stroller. The mats are the perfect example. Ralph sat there one day for three hours — 1,800 people went up and down that mat because that's the way you get on the beach now.

Forget that it was there for me. It helps everybody, and if businesses can offer very hopefully low-cost fixes that would make things better, and if they were open to it, I think they'd find that things move a little better for them.

Dave Graham: For someone in our listening community who wants to support Access Oceanside, whether they're living with a disability or maybe a neighbour who cares, what might be the most meaningful way they can get involved?

Ralph Tietjen: You can either become a full member and attend meetings on a regular basis. It's always interesting — what's the next barrier that's coming up and how can we address it, and who do we talk to, who could we partner with? As Maggie said, we're an advocacy organisation. We don't do fundraising. We advocate on behalf of persons with disabilities in order to get things changed and moving.

So that's our biggest role. If someone is not able to come out, they can become an associate member. Then they get copies of the minutes, they can send us their concerns, things that they've come across, and we can address those in the meeting. We just refreshed the website, which we think is a great way for people to stay in touch with us.

We've had some people reach out already, which is great — like you, so thank you for that. It's also a way to see what's going on and what's happening. We're going to put more and more information up there — correspondence with communities, things that we are advocating for, and things that have been achieved — wins.

The Mobi Mat was a highlight for us in the last couple of years. The donation came out of nowhere from Corona Canada. They had a program that we had no idea was going on, but it was simply happenstance that they knew about Parksville Beach and thought, would we be interested? And oh my God, yes, we were interested. And what really blew us away was the engagement of the city.

Number one, how the mats were taken up immediately by people of all abilities. Moms with strollers, dads hauling wagons — and it just became the way to get on and off the beach. And honestly, it opened my eyes to when you do something for the three or four people who might use it in a day — who it was really intended for — they become the tiny minority because they have to wait their turn now, because everybody's using that mat up and down.

And that just showed me that if you can make something accessible for persons who really need it, it really makes it easier for everybody. We all look for easier ways to get somewhere, get things done, and that is the way we're going. And we can't do it alone. We need to do it with partners — the cities, the municipalities, the regional district parks, anybody.

I'm constantly amazed at the ideas that come up around the table. Barriers that we never thought of after years. One of our members has low vision and we were talking about how to make doors more accessible — door actuators, openers, and doorbells to call someone for help. And she said, I just have trouble finding the door.

And that was a comment that came out of nowhere and it was like we all sat around the table. How do you find the door? So there's a whole new set of issues to think about, and we don't know what else is out there that people are dealing with every day.

Dave Graham: Looking ahead, what are the one or two things Access Oceanside is most focused on accomplishing in the next year or two?

Maggie Tietjen: We want to finish our surveys. We've done Downtown Parksville. We also survey anything wherever we are around the world. We survey it as well on the Access Now app, which is a Canadian app, by the way. So we want to continue with all of Oceanside. Eventually we've got one water wheelchair that lives in our garage and we need to find a home for it.

We're having a problem with that. Parksville City Park was easy, but finding a home for this second water wheelchair — that's what we're working on.

Dave Graham: Ralph, if you could leave our listeners with one message about what kind of community Parksville Qualicum Beach could be, and why it matters, what would that be?

Ralph Tietjen: I'm going to come back to the mats because they just opened my eyes to so many things. Making something accessible gives people with mobility challenges the option of going somewhere, doing something — or not. It's a huge difference between "I can't go there" and "Not today. I choose not to go there today."

That's a huge difference in a person's life. By making our area more accessible, it opens up opportunities for everybody, and that's really what we're going for.

Peter McCully: Thank you to Ralph and Maggie, and everyone at Access Oceanside Association. The work they do to ensure access for everyone to fully enjoy life in this community is meaningful and it matters.

If you'd like to find out more about the association, visit their website, accessoceanside.com.

Piano Heist: Hello, this is Patrick Corten of Piano Heist, and together with my colleague Nico Rhodes, we'd like to invite you to a very special event coming up on Vancouver Island. It's the big-screen premiere of The 88th Key, a new Piano Heist short film, created by our dear friend and filmmaker extraordinaire Patrick Shoa, starring Piano Heist — Patrick and Nico — as well as some exciting special guests. So this is happening Sunday, March 29th in Nanaimo, 3:00 PM at the Port Theatre, and Monday, March 30th in Sidney at 11:45 AM at the Star Cinema. This unique event is part film screening, part artist talk and Q&A, and part Piano Heist concert. We hope to see you there.

Ian Lindsay: Ian Lindsay of Lindsay and Associates has played an active role in the local community since 1979. He has been with RE/MAX Vancouver Island's most advanced real estate business network since 1996. Marketing and selling residential, rural strata, recreational investment, and project development real estate. You'll find true real estate professionals at ianlindsay.ca.

Peter McCully: Dave, I feel like the timing of today's second guest is very appropriate. Gas prices are climbing again. Groceries are not getting any cheaper, and here we have a man who has written an entire book on how he lives well on less.

Dave Graham: Well, now he has me thinking — when is a teabag really used up, and could I get just one more dollop of toothpaste out of the tube? And do I really need to use an entire tissue? So many ways to save. Here's Marilyn.

Marilyn: He spent over three decades living well in one of Canada's most expensive cities — not by earning more, but by thinking differently. Steve Burgess is a Vancouver writer, broadcaster, former CBC host, contributing editor of The Tyee, and two-time Canadian National Magazine Award winner. His new book, Cheapskate in Lotus Land, is a personal guide to the philosophy and practice of living well on less.

Peter McCully: Steve, thanks for joining us today on the Pulse Community Podcast.

Steve Burgess: My pleasure.

Peter McCully: After reading the book Cheapskate in Lotus Land, I knew I had to chat with you simply because our careers have so many parallels. We both started in radio as broadcasters at this very same age. We moved on to publishing newspapers, magazines, that sort of thing. And here we are all these years later, still at it.

Steve Burgess: You have to keep reinventing yourself in media, or wherever you go. I feel like I've had several youths. I had my real youth as a teenager, and then I had my young years in radio, and then I had young years as a freelance writer. And then in television — well, it is like a new start every time you start a new venture.

Peter McCully: Now, I asked Siri to look you up on the internet and give me some background information, and she tells me you were born in Ohio.

Steve Burgess: I was. Yes. You know, at the age of 18 months, I told my family, I'm packing up my diaper bag and I'm blowing this joint, and you can come with me or not. No, it was just a fluke. My dad was studying at Oberlin College. My brothers and sisters and my parents — in fact, the whole family was born in Canada, but I happened to be born in the United States by fluke. So there you go. I could be President. Arnold Schwarzenegger couldn't, but I could.

Peter McCully: Now, Steve, what inspired you to write the book Cheapskate in Lotus Land? Was there a specific moment when you realized that being cheap — or frugal, as we like to call it — might actually make a good book?

Steve Burgess: The specific moment when I realized that was when the publisher said it to me. It's a great story. I went up to the Pender Harbour area. That's where the publisher is based — Harbour Publishing and Douglas & McIntyre Publishing, based in Madeira Park — and I went up to visit them because I'd had a previous book called Reservations: The Pleasures and Perils of Travel.

I was hoping to score another book deal. I had a couple of proposals that I sent ahead. Then I went up to talk about it and they were very kind to me. And they were very nice, and then they took my proposals and they gave those proposals a blindfold and a cigarette. They led them out in front of the firing squad.

They basically told me that they didn't hate them, but neither one of them was going to fly. But here's the funny thing — when I got a ride up there from the ferry with the head of the publishing company, the boss of the publishing company — he doesn't like to get credit, but I'll tell you, it's Howard White.

They were putting me up overnight and they said, did you want to go to the IGA to buy some stuff for breakfast tomorrow? I said, I'd love to go to supermarkets. Let's go to the IGA. And we went to the IGA and he watched me going up and down the aisles and talking about the prices and saying, oh, look at this price. Look at this price. This is how this compares to Vancouver.

And after they shot down both my proposals, Howard said to me, I saw you in the supermarket. That's what you should write about. You should write about that. So it's your publishing house that gave you the idea. Once I started to think about it, I began to realize, wow, there are a lot of different angles to this.

I hadn't really contemplated — well, there's a practical aspect to the book for sure, but it's not an entirely practical book. There's a lot of philosophy, there's a lot of stuff about the philosophy, but it was an idea that was given to me. And then once I was given the idea, I thought, wow, this is a great idea, actually. I hope the results prove that.

Peter McCully: Now you live in Vancouver, which is famously one of the most expensive cities in North America. In the book, you mention that your rent has more than tripled over 30 years, while your income has kind of stayed right in the same bracket. At what point did you stop seeing that as a problem and start seeing it as a philosophy, as you say?

Steve Burgess: I moved around a lot because my previous career was in radio, and I came to Vancouver to work for C-FUN. C-FUN — Favourites of Yesterday and Today — it no longer exists, unfortunately. So up until then, my focus was on my radio career and going this place and that place and trying to get a better gig. But once I got to Vancouver, I realized — and I'd realized it for years, really — this is where I want to be.

Other considerations took a backseat. The fact that Vancouver was expensive — it was more a question of, how can I find a way to live in Vancouver, not how can I find a way to live more cheaply or keep my career in radio going? Living in Vancouver became my priority. It became, how can I do that? How can I make that practical?

And I started my freelance writing career, was living pretty hand to mouth as I tried to establish myself. And so the frugality, let's say, was essential to maintaining a life in Vancouver.

Peter McCully: Now you write in the book that you don't need a budget if you have a principle. Can you unpack that idea for listeners who have spent years trying — like myself — to build spreadsheets and stick to a budget every month?

Steve Burgess: The thing is, a budget or any kind of plan like that — it's a way of restraining yourself. It's a way of keeping yourself on the leash. And I'm not saying it's a bad thing. What I was saying in the book is that I don't need one, because I don't need to be on the leash.

As I do talk about in the book, I have a somewhat obsessive nature, and so when it comes to being cheap, I'm obsessive about it. So that means I don't need to make budgets because every single time I go to the store, I'm always looking to spend the least I can possibly spend. And so I don't need budgets because I know that I'm never going to spend more than I have to.

It's a funny thing. Writing a book like this is always educational, and it's educational because you do so much research and you find out about so many topics, but it's also educational because you start to see things about yourself that you have to look at because you wrote it on the page. And one of the things, as I was writing this book, I was realizing — you really are an obsessive kind of person, Steve.

Since the book came out, I'm almost doing the opposite of making budgets — in the sense that I'm forcing myself to spend more money now. I'm saying, look, you need to relax a little bit, bud, because left to my own devices, I will always cheap out, and sometimes it's too much. You're doing it beyond any rational, practical purpose. You're just cheaping out for its own sake. But all of which is to say, I have a principle, so I don't need a budget because I'm always looking to get things cheaply.

Peter McCully: Many people think that living cheaply means going without. How did you come to think of frugality as freedom rather than sacrifice?

Steve Burgess: You only have to look around. I'm hardly the first person to say that material goods can be a trap. That's been a highlight of various religious doctrines for millennia. Once you are focused on acquisition, focused on what you do have — that is a trap. It is a prison. This is an extreme case, but I do talk in the book about the legendary Diogenes.

The man most associated with the Greek philosophy of cynicism — which, by the way, is not what we call cynicism today. That word doesn't mean the same thing. The original cynics, they weren't cynical. They were people who believed in simplicity, and they believed in shunning wealth and fame and just living a natural and good life.

And the story is told of Diogenes that he had one possession — a bowl, a drinking bowl — and then one day down by the stream, he saw a young boy cupping his hands to drink water, and Diogenes smashed his drinking bowl and called himself a fool for being so extravagant. It's probably not a true story, but it does make the point that Diogenes was part of that movement that said you don't need acquisition. You don't need possessions.

That makes it seem highfalutin. But the thing is, it's about ordering your priorities. And if you move your priorities away from wealth and acquisition, you find that that's not what happiness depends on. It doesn't mean you divest yourself of everything.

It means you figure out what your priorities are and you focus on those. When I talk about the fact that I'm obsessive, that's one of the things that I was saying — and this is one of the things that I have to remind myself — don't just save for its own sake. Think about why you're saving. What is it that you are saving for?

What is it that you want to prioritise? In my case, one of the main things is travel, and it's also financial security. I don't want to worry about money. I don't want to live cheque to cheque. That's what's driven me. Over the years, I want to have savings so that I'm not in a panic if I spend too much money before payday.

That's always been my priority — I don't want to be stressing about money. So that's priority one. Don't stress about money. Gradually, priority number two became having enough money to travel cheaply, but to travel.

Peter McCully: Looking over the decades that you describe in the book, which single frugal decision do you think had the biggest long-term impact on your quality of life?

Steve Burgess: This is interesting because I can tell you what single decision I made that saved me more money than anything else, and it had nothing to do with saving money. My decision wasn't a financial decision at all. It was this — when I was young, I had a serious drinking problem. When I was 24 years old, I took my final drink and haven't had one since.

Think about how much money I've saved. I've been sober now for over 40 years. You would need a pretty powerful calculator to calculate all the cash that I saved. If you talk about one single decision to save me money — quitting drinking. Boy, that saved me a ton. It saved me a lot of other things too. I mean, there's a lot of unexpected costs when you're drinking and getting yourself into one fix after another.

Lord knows what unexpected expenses you're going to rack up. I would say that was the one decision. And interestingly enough, I didn't sit down and go, Steve, you are spending too much money on drink, you must stop. It was, Steve, you're in trouble. And that's why.

Peter McCully: Did that lifestyle choice clash with social expectations — like friends, family, or colleagues who thought Steve's just too cheap to drink?

Steve Burgess: I'll tell you one thing, and this is separate from the financial side — when you don't drink, one of the key things that you have to do more than anything else is reassure people that it's okay if they drink. You know, I'm not going to be sitting there like a chained-up dog while you're eating a hot dog in front of me.

It doesn't work that way. If I felt that way, I wouldn't have successfully quit. No, I quit. And I'm lucky in that I was very successful and that was it. I was done with alcohol. If you are managing your alcohol intake, I applaud you. I was never able to do it, but you can. And I know lots and lots of people who are very good at social drinking.

Good for you. I hope that doesn't interfere with the social life. On another point, talk about cheapness — I talk in the book about how I never go out to restaurants. I always cook for myself. If you see me out in a restaurant, someone's buying me dinner, because I'm not going to buy dinner for myself.

That was one of the things that when I wrote it in the book, I looked at it and went, oh, that's creepy. It's true, but it's creepy. And at the very end of the book, I do say that I am making a conscious effort to change that, and that is true. I'm making a conscious effort now to pick up the tab, because one thing that became clear to me when I was writing the book is there's a difference between being cheap and being a sponge. Being cheap — that's about you. Being a sponge — you're sponging off other people. I'm really trying to change that now. Not, "Oh, I'm so cheap, so buy me dinner." No, you've got to pull your own weight.

Peter McCully: Now in the book you write about anti-consumerism, thrifting, couponing. Is there any one approach to saving money or being frugal that you tried that just didn't work as you expected it would?

Steve Burgess: I haven't tried any of those things that I write about. I haven't tried Freeganism, except that I sort of have — I just don't do it as a full-on philosophy. In terms of Freeganism, my microwave came from a back alley. My television came from friends. The phone that I have was given to me. The phone I had before that was given to me. I have a sort of a Freegan philosophy. I don't pursue that religiously. If I need to buy something, I'll buy it.

When you talk about things that maybe don't work — there are little things that I've done where I realize, okay, you're just doing something crazy here and it's not really saving you any money.

Part of it is because, again, writing the book has made me look at the fact that it's not just a desire to save money when you're someone like me who is frugal — there's also a hatred of waste. That's part of what drives this. I hate wasting things and I want to make sure that things have been used, and so sometimes I will do things where I'm not really saving money, I'm just acting out of a desire not to waste.

And pardon me, I'm going to say something that has grossed some people out. So prepare yourself. If you want to talk about something where I look at it and go, dude, you are not really saving any money with this behaviour — it's the fact that I reuse my dental floss. There you go. A lot of people are very creeped out by that, but it's my mouth. I'm not using someone else's dental floss. It's all going in the same mouth. But when you stop and think, Steve, how much money are you saving by reusing your dental floss? Fractions of a penny.

Fractions of a penny, and yet I still do it. Just because, oh, this is still good. You know, there's still a good stretch on this here piece of dental floss. You are not going to throw that away. Pretty ridiculous.

Peter McCully: Now, here on Vancouver Island, people depend on vehicles more heavily because the population is spread out, and your cheapskate philosophy works for you to a great extent in Vancouver because you don't own a vehicle and you ride a bicycle. How can someone apply your philosophy when transportation costs are harder to avoid? Do you think?

Steve Burgess: That's a tough one. And one of the things I try to do — I hope this is not just an easy out for me — one of the things I say throughout the book: my circumstances are my own, and I'm telling you about how I live my life, but it's not entirely scalable for everybody.

Not everybody can do all the things that I do, and I'm aware of that. I'm very lucky to live in Vancouver. I'm very lucky in the fact that I don't have kids. Not everybody will call that luck. I don't have kids. I don't have any need to go anywhere specific. So I don't need a car and I've got a bicycle. We've got a good cycling infrastructure.

I'm well aware that people who live in rural communities and people who are living up island and things like that, they can't do that. So it is difficult, and to some extent there's also a certain amount of this frugality that you hope is going to fall on government as well, like public transit. We need better public transit and we need more intercity transit.

You hope that there are going to be more options for people who want to get by without a car. But I do understand that it's difficult. There is the question — okay, if you buy an electric vehicle, are you ultimately saving money? I haven't sat down and done the math on that, but that is possibly one option where you can avoid gas prices.

Carpooling and so on. But there's no doubt about it. We do live in a society where there are times when people are just going to need vehicles. And one of the things that's really sad is the fact that bus service has withered away. I was trying to figure out the other day what it is about the economics that changed so that Greyhound was no longer economically feasible.

There's no doubt that is a difficult one. The only thing I would say is — people who do have vehicles tend to use them without thinking. I will just say, try to think about the trips that you can take without a car. Get a bicycle. You can get an e-bike. You might be surprised at how many trips you can take without the car, so you don't have to get rid of the car.

You can cut down on your fuel use. There's a fairly high percentage of trips, they say, that are less than five or ten kilometres. You can cut back on some of those and you'll be the better for it, because that's the only exercise I get.

Peter McCully: On the other side of the coin, Steve — are there advantages to living cheaply in smaller or rural communities that big-city folks might actually have been overlooking?

Steve Burgess: That's something I would only have to speculate about. It's been a long time. In my radio career, I lived in Estevan, Saskatchewan. I was at CJSL in Estevan. I grew up in Brandon, Manitoba, which is not small, but the obvious advantage is that in places like that, you're likely to be paying less for rent.

Or if you buy, you're likely to be able to buy more cheaply. Prices are going up even in smaller places, but nonetheless, you can save money on housing. The thing is, though, honestly, I think there are disadvantages to living in smaller places. People talk about Vancouver being an inexpensive place to live, and it is, in some ways.

In Vancouver, I have much more choice when it comes to where I'm going to buy groceries. From time to time, I could go to Sunrise Market and look at what's on sale there. I can get food there incredibly cheaply. Most small towns, you don't have that. But it's six of one, half a dozen of the other.

You usually pay less for housing, but you might be paying more for food in a small town.

Peter McCully: Steve Burgess is the author of Cheapskate in Lotus Land. After writing the book, Steve, do you think the real goal is saving money, or is it really about designing the kind of life that you want to live?

Steve Burgess: I think it's absolutely the latter.

I do think that one of the things that frugality makes you think about is priorities. If you sort out your priorities, you're going to be better off. It's not just priorities in terms of spending money, but it's also priorities in terms of income. I have said in the book that I think frugality is a necessary skill of creative people, because if you want to try to make a living through creative means, it's highly unlikely that you're going to make a ton of money at it. There are a lucky few — a lucky elite — that will do very well, being Banksy or Taylor Swift or something like that. My life is not going to be about increasing my income. It's going to be about how can I get by doing what it is that I want to do, and that's an important priority.

But for the most part, if you are going to try to make a living through creative means, you're probably going to have to learn how to get discount cheese.

Dave Graham: Steve Burgess — a genuinely fascinating conversation. I'm not sure I'm ready to reuse my dental floss, but I respect the commitment. You'll find Steve's book at Fireside Books. Otherwise, we'll have links to the book in our story notes.

Peter McCully: And while you're on our website, check out the newest addition to the Pulse Community Podcast family — A Resilience Project with Cindy Thompson and her guests, showing how we can move from surviving to thriving.

Dave Graham: We invite you to follow Parksville councillors Joel Grins and Sean Wood as their podcast Nonpartisan Hacks allows listeners an insider's point of view of municipal politics.

Peter McCully: Our Skookum Kid Stories feature Captain Dave and the crew of the Mellow Submarine, and Peter and Gracie the Eskimo Dog. And our kids' stories now offer colouring pages to go along with each new episode. On this week's episode, Peter and his dog Gracie trained to be superheroes.

Dave Graham: And our Radio Archaeology classic radio series features original episodes of Dragnet featuring Sergeant Joe Friday, and Marshall Matt Dillon in Gunsmoke. You'll find these podcasts and more at thepulsecommunity.ca.

Peter McCully: Don't forget, our Sun Fest contest is on right now. Enter to win a four-day general admission pass for two. Visit our Facebook or Instagram pages or thepulsecommunity.ca for details.

Dave Graham: Good luck with the draw. You know, winning stuff is a great way to save money. Steve Burgess would approve.

Peter McCully: Thanks for joining us today, folks. Now get out there and enjoy the season. The gardens are ready, the community is buzzing, and spring on Vancouver Island doesn't get any better than this.

Dave Graham: Consider stepping outside and enjoying the wonders before us as free entertainment — another opportunity to save. I tell you, I am inspired to find ways to get my money's worth. I might just sit in the dark for a while tonight and think about the pennies I'm saving.

Peter McCully: We'll see you next week!

Dave Graham: Peter, can you give me a piggyback out of here? I'd like to save the wear and tear on my shoes. Is that a no on the piggyback? Okay. Well, while you're walking away, I think we need to talk about saving money here at the Pulse Community Podcast headquarters. I propose we turn the sauna down a degree, maybe two. And I think we need to cancel plans for the chocolate fountain. I know, I know. I don't like it either, but that's life. Peter?

Rockin' Rhonda & The Uptown Blues Band: Here comes Peter, here comes Dave, oh listen. Bringing stories, making waves, no missing. Spinning tales in the podcast cave, so to speak. Laughs and insights everywhere — what a treat. Peter and Dave, they're on the mics. All right, join the ride. It's gonna feel just right.