At the heart of the debate about the place of standard arithmetic algorithms is the practice of teaching subtraction through decomposition. One welcome feature of the national numeracy strategy in both its initial and current incarnations has been the introduction of a focus upon a variety of mental strategies supported by jottings. In this article, the author demonstrates the use of a mental strategy for subtraction that offers a more child-friendly alternative to decomposition. He calls this approach "same difference." The strategy is consistent with the principle already established in primary schools, which is to encourage children to adopt sensible mental approaches, where the numbers involved influence the choice of strategy. An indication of a confident understanding of this strategy would be the flexible use of rounding up and rounding down, depending on the numbers involved. (Contains 1 note and 11 figures.)