Less Hustle More Coffee

Well, here you have it. Here is my digital subscription list. I do have one correction to point out that I just noticed this morning that I have my Blog Domain charge on there twice! I need to remove that.

I feel better now that I have a list. This does not include anything George and I have together, like Netflix, or Comcast. It’s just mostly my personal digital type subscriptions. Of course it does not list my cell phone itself or anything like that. And I don’t think I have any other ongoing subscriptions through apps. That I can recall! This does not include an app that was bought with a one time charge.

I just wanted to have a list of things that I use. One needs to know these things! I need to give it to George so he can stop these if something happens to me too! Eventually they would stop anyway when the credit card expired. lol

I stopped my Evernote premium subscription.

It was a pretty hefty price per year and I stopped it barely in time. I had already been charged the subscription in our bank account and supposedly it’s been reversed/credited back. I was told it was. I need to check with George to make sure. I want to say it was $87 or $97 – it was close to $100 per year. I needed it when I was doing the “side hustle” so I could have files with me on the go and on all devices so I could do the business in little sections of time on the go. Then I forgot about it. So I got rid of those files as if you had over a certain amount of storage, it would make you go premium. I had spent hours building Evernote and thought it was free until I reached a maximum and basically out of frustration had paid the subscription as I was deep into the organization of my files. This was such a money suck of an adventure to do the side hustle. I made money, but I spent more trying to get myself organized. Anyway I’m going down rabbit holes here which is what I do best! lol

Are all these subscriptions necessary or justified?

I’m going to say yes! When I look at what my goals are, what my entertainment is, my social life, my other expenditures, what I’ve given up this year —-YES!

For about $91.46 a month with my quick calculations I have enough to keep me wildly entertained and able to create, listen, learn and do most anything my heart desires, except for RVing of course, LOL.

I have what I need for the videos, for my entertainment during work commutes, the ability to listen to any song ever and download into my library if I wanna, as long as it is in iTunes. My social life basically sucks right now. Our life has slowed down tremendously, even though we manage to keep ourselves busy regardless. But point is we don’t go to concerts, movies, and quite frankly don’t go out to eat as much. I have also given up mani’s and pedis for a year. Gave up coloring my hair every couple of months! Even gave up hair cuts last year. I’m back on with those though but no coloring! Still only do mani’s on the occasion here and there instead of dropping the bucks on that every 3 weeks. And pretty much pedi’s only in sandal season and a periodic once a winter foot softening excursion around Christmas or January, lol.

So after consideration of all I’m doing, all I’m saving and what I’ve not been doing – I’m actually ok with this list. I’ve reviewed it’s necessity in my life and determined these things above can stay!

I do think we need to look at Comcast. I think we are paying for some things we are not using and need to right size it. And before retirement (4 years away, though) we need to look at cell phone bill again. I think we pay more for that than we really need, in fear we’ll go over. We need to look at our history and make that call. I probably use way more cell phone service though as I don’t have to think about switching to our home internet as we can use what we want(we are maxed out in coverage), so that will not be a good accurate thing to look at usage.

So what is CANVA?

I can use it for so many things. I can get graphics, gifs, jpgs, and create things for most any social media or blog posts. I can create phone wallpapers. And now they even have animation in your creations. I can download it without a background and can overlay it on videos. I can use it similarly to create graphics – almost as good as Paint Shop Pro, but not quite. It quickly serves my needs. I should use it more than I do if I had more time to be creative. I can use it on the go and across multiple devices. There is a free version but like most any other app – the premium gives you the services you want, and the free was annoying as the best things you like will be premium and it was always reminding me I didn’t have premium. After like the 10th photo I wanted and couldn’t have, and trying various other time consuming ways to get a background removed – I finally bit the bullet! lol lol lol. And I’m not going back. I love CANVA!

Epidemic Sound?

It has all the songs I can use royalty free on YouTube and other social media. They have me covered so I don’t get dinged with YouTube. They have so many songs on there and it also drops it into your iTunes as well once it’s downloaded. I guess that is an apple thing. It just appears in there somehow. It also has sound effects. I’ve been so happy with it. My only complaint is that their website was so pretty and then they made it all black! I don’t love that, but that is really a very minor thing as it’s content is amazing and the way it is laid out.

Tube Buddy?

I haven’t had time to do a lot of the learning on this one, but it has been critical and helpful in many ways especially with the Thumbnail for YouTube and also the End Screens. It also can help with analytics and key words. I’ve not had time to learn and play but I really want to. It’s on the list. I’m using it enough that I don’t want to go backwards to drop it. I recently found I have to be on Chrome and not Safari, as far as I know. Safari is safer on a Mac and Chrome has its deficiencies from a security standpoint. When I switched to Safari I lost my Tube Buddy. Drove me crazy trying to find it. But Google said it was extension on Chrome. Went to upload my video on Chrome and yep, there it was! Whew! I thought they had cancelled me. I was really confused. It doesn’t take much to get me confused either. Tube Buddy can help and I can use it more when I have time to learn.

Audible?

Well, I just really like having these books I can listen to when I’m on the road or stuck in traffic. I will likely drop this when we retire. I have so many actual books I will have time to read then. Even if we travel some, I will like the actual books better. Even RVing full time or in loops, I wouldn’t listen to them, but would prefer a book!

Apple Music and Apple Storage

As mentioned, any song, any time. I like the new song suggestions. This keeps me entertained quite a bit. I listen to music often, especially in my ear phones at work when I’m doing low level concentration activities. Not ever while doing payroll! Unless it is rain or ocean or monotone type stuff. And the storage for me was one of those “oh my gosh I’m so over this file project” after hours of trying to get my files organized I needed more space in the cloud to protect my working files for the videos so I gave in and upgraded out of convenience. I was hours invested in the project and now don’t have to worry about it anymore. lol. Plus George wants to do Garageband and it sucks the space!

Word Press Blogging?

Well that goes without saying. It’s long been determined that is worth it for me! It’s how I can live my life! It’s my therapy, it’s my photo album, it’s my journal, it’s my social life, it’s a lot and I’d be lost without it. It’s worth the extra for the perks I get for paying premium. I get bigger choices of skins to use for the domain, I get help if needed, a few behind the scenes perks, and bigger storage of photos and such. It was clear that a premium service was the way to go for me.

Domain?

It’s so much more fun to have “your own domain name”. Easier for people to find too without having to add “dot WordPress” or whatever to the title. That was gift I gave to myself a while back.

So I’ll keep all of these and I won’t feel guilty when I work Full Time, don’t have much of a social life, and have given up a lot of my costs. Now that I have done this exercise though, it feels like it’s a little more in control. I don’t pay the finances as George does. He doesn’t know what all this stuff is really I don’t think so I just needed to reconcile what I’m doing and make sure that I’m not being charged for things I don’t use. I will give him this list so if he sees anything come through other than this he needs to ask me about it.

OK I gotta get off of here and get into work!

I loved how the computer looked yesterday! Love this flight scene! And leaving you with Little Roo and his tummy time from day care yesterday! Apparently according to his Mom, he is going to be a social thing. He loves the interaction with others and it is making him sleep better. He is having a good time! This is making his Mom and Dad happier and less worried.

OK over and out!