Ask HN: What software did you purchase that positively impacted your family life • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: What software did you purchase that positively impacted your family life

#41

Post by zeagle » Wed, Oct 04, 2023, 2:33 AM UTC

We also do the email thing but as an alias to sends it to both our inboxes. That is a great 'life hack' for flights, car rentals, reservations, important purchases, etc.

I purchased foldersync for android to copy nightly photos off the phones to our nas to \name\yyyymm\ to backup our photos without relying on 3rd party sync. Solves the issue of losing videos/photos if a phone breaks. http://photos/ can browse them with photoview.

For me free software is more valuable: keepass, seafile, and paperlessngx with a printer that scans to it with a button and a scan@mydomain.tld has made a huge difference particularly to be paperless and has WAF.

I purchased an airgradient indoor + outdoor after multiple plugs here and it is helpful for deciding if we should open windows as sensitive to forest fire smoke so it also counts. (I will say it had damage when it arrived and it's been annoying having to reach out a couple times to see if it can be replaced.)

Finally, I recently added lunchmoney.app for finances but time will tell if it is more than a novelty.

Re: Ask HN: What software did you purchase that positively impacted your family life

#42

Post by daft_pink » Wed, Oct 04, 2023, 2:35 AM UTC

Flow Club is a virtual coworking website and it's been the best thing for my productivity. It's been the biggest positive impact for me in my life. I just find it keeps me on task and makes me a lot more productive vs the gtd rabbit hole that I fell down before.

I really like Superhuman and Obsidian as well. I used to use notion, but I find obsidian to just work a lot faster and be more free form.

I pay for the Chatgpt subscription and we love it. Grammarly is pretty good but my wife mostly uses it.

Youtube Premium for no commercials is also really awesome.

Re: Ask HN: What software did you purchase that positively impacted your family life

#43

Post by simbolit » Wed, Oct 04, 2023, 2:36 AM UTC

chasd00 wrote: post #29

We all (family of 4) have iPhones and use FindMy to see where everyone is and when they’re going to be home to time dinner. We also have a family chat on iMessage that really comes in handy.

So you are using FM not as an emergency tool, but generally? Does that mean in your family everyone (potentially) always knows where everyone else is? Is there a rule for when/if it's appropriate to turn FM off?

Please don't read this as me judging; if that works for you, great, I'd (as far as i understand it) not want that, but it's not my life.

Re: Ask HN: What software did you purchase that positively impacted your family life

#44

Post by iancmceachern » Wed, Oct 04, 2023, 2:37 AM UTC

Trip it is great for traveling

Re: Ask HN: What software did you purchase that positively impacted your family life

#45

Post by NegativeK » Wed, Oct 04, 2023, 2:40 AM UTC

evantravers wrote: post #7

vthommeret wrote: post #6

YNAB

This a thousand times. The number of times my spouse has said "hey, can I buy… oh wait. We've enough in the budget. Cool."

The nicest thing about YNAB (which is budgeting in general -- YNAB just did it in a way that I stuck with it) is that it gives me permission for guilt free purchases.

No need to think about it; the budget's right there, so I can spend it without second guessing myself.

Re: Ask HN: What software did you purchase that positively impacted your family life

#46

Post by conductr » Wed, Oct 04, 2023, 2:40 AM UTC

personjerry wrote: post #13

Piggybacking onto this thread, does anyone use software or any services for their parenting that they find invaluable? I imagine mentors and services like Kumon are popular with this crowd? How about the non-academic front?

> How about the non-academic front?

We limited it to coloring apps until they have an opinion at which point it will be a game and followed by whatever game their friends are playing (we haven't opened up multiplayer, they are still just playing individually then bragging about it to each other at school. It's a small glimpse into my NES days, except I was a bit older.)

Either way, ours get about 10 minutes a week but that's up from 'only on airplanes and in airports' last year

Re: Ask HN: What software did you purchase that positively impacted your family life

#47

Post by simbolit » Wed, Oct 04, 2023, 2:41 AM UTC

yashvg wrote: post #9

Privacy.com - let's you easily make virtual burner cards that you can use for free trials and not worry about having to cancel the subscription on time.

Please be aware that while this might (!) work in the US, in many other jurisdictions not canceling a subscription makes you still liable to pay, even if your card is gone; welcome to the wonderful world of debt collection.

IANAL

Re: Ask HN: What software did you purchase that positively impacted your family life

#48

Post by IntToDouble » Wed, Oct 04, 2023, 2:42 AM UTC

Our twist on the family email is to have $VARIABLE@domain.com point to a Google Group that for the moment, only goes to the adults in the room. Makes sorting/labeling things significantly easier.

$KID1@domain.com, $PET2@domain.com, $HOUSE1@domain.com, etc.

Re: Ask HN: What software did you purchase that positively impacted your family life

#49

Post by personjerry » Wed, Oct 04, 2023, 2:42 AM UTC

adastra22 wrote: post #35

personjerry wrote: post #13

Piggybacking onto this thread, does anyone use software or any services for their parenting that they find invaluable? I imagine mentors and services like Kumon are popular with this crowd? How about the non-academic front?

> I imagine mentors and services like Kumon are popular with this crowd? Not in my bubble at least.

How do you make sure that your children will go to a top university then?

Re: Ask HN: What software did you purchase that positively impacted your family life

#50

Post by toastercat » Wed, Oct 04, 2023, 2:43 AM UTC

adastra22 wrote: post #38

jsbrux wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Second to YNAB. I’m sad they’ve raised the price, but 99% of our budget and finance strife is gone due 100% to YNAB. Plus the deal to have free budgets for your older kids? Very nice.

I’m sad they rewrote it for the web and made an inferior, subscription-based product.

The installers for YNAB4 have since been removed from the official YNAB site, but you can still get them on Wayback Machine: https://web.archive.org/web/20190122064610/https://classic.y...