Hello, fellow tinkerer 👋

Happy Wednesday. I have excellent news: I can see again. 🎉

Since my brain surgery last July, I've had double vision. I could manage by keeping one eye covered all the time, but it wasn't great.

I saw a neuro ophthalmologist in January, and she prescribed glasses with a prism lens. The prism completely corrects my double vision. I can see clearly for the first time in six months!

1) Reflection:

I've always been a huge advocate for spending money on tools if they make your work (or life) easier.
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However, after my surgery last year I wasn't able to work and spent about two months with zero income. It made me take a hard look at what I spent money on and ask myself: Is this really necessary? Or can I do without?

I also had at least three companies tell me that they were raising their rates on my subscription. I know companies have increased costs, but charging more (especially without any additional value) will invariably lead to people looking elsewhere.

If you download my Pricing Guide, you'll see that I didn't raise my client rates for 2026. Even though, as a consumer, my cost of living has gone up, it didn't feel like the right time to rock the boat with my clients.

Everyone is different. Every situation is different. And also {waves around at costs going up everywhere}.

2) Tip

I pay for a lot of subscriptions annually to save money (if they offer a discount to pay annually). That means I need to keep track of their renewals so I can cancel if the tool is no longer working for me.

I do this in a few ways. I have a GSheet of all of the subscriptions for my business and when they renew. This is tied to my overall budget as a solopreneur.

For personal subscriptions, I put an event on our family calendar with an email notification 2 weeks prior, reminding me to cancel if needed. I also do this if I'm signed up for a temporary subscription (like paying Peacock to watch the Olympics), so I don't forget to cancel.

3) Product

In addition to tracking my subscriptions, I get text alerts for all charges to my credit card. This might seem like overkill, but it's a quick alert that I can glance at. In a few cases, I've even detected fraud or a company continuing to charge me for a subscription even after I canceled.

One of my credit cards will send me SMS alerts, but another one doesn't - it will only send email alerts. For that card, I've used Zapier to create my own SMS alerts. You can read about that setup here.

Want more ideas?

→ Check out my friend Liam Carnahan's review of his 2025 year as a freelancer.

→ I wrote my own year in review here.

→ I also wrote about how we don't have the right language to describe job loss.

That's it for this issue of Tinkering! See you again in two weeks.

Cheers,
Anna

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