Might try LibreOffice ofr a very good replacement that handles all the various old Excel formats
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When I dropped my Office subscription in favor of the Apple apps, Excel was the hardest to lose. Numbers was different enough that it took some time to get comfortable with it. Since I’m retired I don’t do any complex spreadsheets anymore so it’s not a big deal.
Pupsino
I’ve just renewed YNAB myself. I tried a lot of other options but I’ve been with YNAB since version 3 and anything I tried just didn’t quite fit as well. I’ll be intrigued how you go when 2023 comes around.
I’m curious about YNAB. I think I’m on top of my finances (no debt, have everything I need 
) so can’t see the need for such an app. I suppose YT is a good source to get further info?
Fun exercise!
Keeping:
- 1Blocker, $5/year. Works, cross-platform/cross-network, is cheap.
- 1Password families, $60. Essential set of shared information hubs
- Castro Premium, $19/year
- Half of a Disney+ account, $48/year
- Agenda app renewals ($35 a little less frequently than a year)
- Fantastical, $40/year. I thought I would stop using it when I recently switched jobs and stopped needing to juggle ~30 calendars, but the default calendar is unpleasant. May upgrade to $65/year for families this year as our children are reaching the age where the family will benefit from more toggle-able shared calendars.
- Hey email, $100/year. Love affair continues!
- iCloud 200GB, $36/year.
- SimpleFin Bridge, $15/year. A bank syncing service for Buckets budget app
- MorePU, $50/year
- About $150/year worth of some other Patreons/premium feeds
- Eero Secure, $29/year. Not an amazing service, but I’m happy with the router hardware, want the in-app data, and the per-device filters are working for us.
Might cancel:
- Angie’s List ($5/year, look up vendors every 18-24 months)
- Dithering podcast, $50/year (I think it may cease publication in the next year anyway)
- NewsBlur, $24/year. I do still love the filtering, and don’t begrudge the cost at all, but life changes have me wondering if a few of my heavily filtered feeds can either be dropped entirely, or have their logic moved into DevonThink and stepped up a notch.
Cancelled
- Apple One, $240/year. I only use $36/year 200GB iCloud storage now of these services
- Nintendo Switch Online, $20/year. I wish I had the time to play.
- YNAB, $45/year. Moved to Buckets app so won’t need to renew
- A couple of other premium feeds I don’t like/use as much as I used to
Might add
- I’m still hoping to find a nutrition management service that works for me and my vices. Most are subscription-based.
Not pictured: development-related tools and services, hosting/servers, household utilities, media subscriptions that get turned on for a month or cheap free trial, etc.
Hi Bill
For my own family YNAB’s rules especially the give every dollar a job rule, have been instrumental in being able to raise our family for years on one income and allowed me to retrain by accepting a much lower salary for a couple of years.
Essentially it is envelope budgeting in the modern era. A lot of budgeting solutions appear to resemble account registers categorising the money after it is spent. YNAB is aimed at deciding before hand where the money must be spent.
YT is the best place to learn about the 4 rules that they apply.
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@davepettitt and @Bill_Aus , I am interested to understand your experience of YNAB in Aussie context, I guess it is a given that YNAB would not support ATO taxation rules both for incoming and CGT?
when you mentioned YT, what is it (cannot be YouTube , right?)
FYI, I am using Buxfer, which is fine except that the support sucks big time, the worst I have even experienced in my life. I would give them the worst support award for life.
Keeping:
- Apple One Family: Mainly using Apple Music + iCloud, but pricing on par with separate subscriptions. So Apple Arcade & AppleTV+ are free gimmicks I guess.
- Drafts: Main app where I draft emails, Slack messages, etc., use it multiple times a day.
- Obsidian Sync: Main note-taking app.
- 1Password Family Account: Shared with wife. Family features are nice over Apple Keychain etc.
- Adobe Lightroom: Doing lots of photography so worth it.
- Fastmail: Main e-mail provider.
- Netflix: Entertainment for family.
- PlayStation Online: Personal gaming needs.
- YNAB: Using for >7 years and by now I honestly couldn’t keep track of my families’ money without it anymore… Reports are great to keep track of spending trends. Kept us sane and out of debt through multiple relocation and job change situations.
- Carrot Weather: For Watch Widget
Under review:
- Day One: The “on this day” notifications and summaries are really nice and often remind me of previous vacations. But recently almost stopped writing journal.
- TextExpander: I have like 1-2 occasions per year where I need its automation, and then its very useful. Otherwise I almost don’t touch it.
- Fantastical: Convenience is nice over Apple Calendar but not sure if enough that I want to continue paying for it…
Cancelled:
- PDF Expert: Used it for two years as I annotate PDFs daily. But I noticed that the free version works as well for most things I do.
- Bear: Aesthetically most pleasing but Drafts + Obsidian are enough.
- Overcast: Almost stopped listening to Podcasts since pandemic due to missing commute.
- Inoreader: Nice service but haven’t been using its Pro features enough to justify it. Switched to NetNewsWire + iCloud Sync.
- Pinboard: Switched to GoodLinks for bookmark needs.
2 Likes
Correct, not suitable for ATO reports and CGT. Sorry about the abbreviation of YT. I did mean YouTube.
thanks , just wondering you have experience with Buxfer.com and if yes, how do you compare with YNAB (which is more costly)
Cheers, Dave, I’ll have to have a look into it!
Hey @fuzzygel Yep, I meant YouTube as a quick and dirty way of getting the basics. If that resonates I might look further. I like the idea of giving every dollar a job. It may be even more beneficial now that every dollar we make is ours! (well, apart from the taxman! )
Y’all have convinced me I should look into YNAB with my wife.
Here’s my list:
Personal Essential:
- 1Password for Family
- Apple One Premier. We use the iCloud storage and Music nearly every day. Fitness+ usually 2-4 times a week. During the winter it’s more like 6 times a week or 7. (Fitness+ is weather dependent for us and helps us stay active when being outside isn’t optional). And TV+ is used occasionally.
- Criterion Channel. Far and away our favourite streaming service. We love love love the film selection here.
- Disney+
- Ulysses. We both use it for Bible study. I would love to migrate to something else, but the right option hasn’t come along yet.
- PlayStation+ / Nintendo Online / Xbox Game Pass. Games and guitars are how I relax. I bought 3 years of Game Pass at once for $150 so that doesn’t really count, but it is a subscription product.
Business. Everything here is basically essential:
- AWS for some website asset storage
- lots of Linode servers
- Backblaze for backup
- Adobe Creative Cloud
- Cushion (for financial planning and tracking)
- Dropbox
- Fastmail
- Fathom (web analytics that aren’t creepy)
- Zoom
I am sure I have forgotten a few things. We will also take the occasional free month of Prime as it is offered to us, but unless I forget, I cancel it before the month is up.
this (and other similar posts previously) prompt me to review my subscription list. I am using subtrack to track my subscriptions. I wish there is a way to export my list and share here but there is none.
I do not want to bore everyone with a long (and I mean long) list. So I would summarize to say that the list is very similar to most people.
I get to a point that I alway wonder when is the due date for certain app. An example is Goodlinks (just picking this at random, there are other examples). I keep trying to find from the web site and from App Store when I am due to pay for the next renewal. Then I realise that it is a one time only payment.
I am not sure 
I should feel happy 
(for buying such a good app and no ongoing subscription requires) and sad that it is now the exception than the norm 
I did the same… attempted to do the same with Playstation but they have closed the loophole on that one
Sony likes to slap their customers to spite their face when they’re on top. (Although Microsoft, until recently, was not known for or attempting to be a paragon of kindness.)
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I use Obsidian (free, though I paid a one-off fee to support them) for Bible study and it’s been serving me well. What do you like about Ulysses?
Footnotes UI and ordering folders manually. Also sheet notes. (Edit: typo)
It’s a bit of a long-shot and maybe a little paranoid of me, but is listing your subs publicly a security issue of some kind?
For example, if I one of you were “hacked”, the person could search this forum to then say “ah, they have a Fantastical Account, a Things account, they have AT&T” etc.
I know, it’s far fetched but hey, just a thought.
If you are on this forum, then you already are a subscriber to some of them. They can iterate through the apps commonly discussed. Its a small subset.