How much should you spend on a pair of binoculars? This question has been followed for several days on the birding email network BirdChat. Today, this piece of advice: Spend as much on your binoculars as you would on one month of rent or one monthly house payment.

This comes from a book by Jack Connor, "The Complete Birder." I don't know when it was published, but I'd guess rent and house payments were lower than. I'm not sure you could find binoculars priced high enough today to match many current monthly rent/mortgage payments.