u/Character-Bar-9561

I just completed my switch to Zerosum, after running it in parallel with my longstanding YNAB account for the past few weeks. It does everything I need, and I really appreciate how responsive the developer is. Looking forward to an app that treats me like an adult, letting me customize things like sidebar and account groupings. I always did manual entry in YNAB and will continue to do so in ZS, and I don't even use the analytics much. To me, being able to keep up with the envelope budgeting method and know that I'm spending within the limits I've defined is extremely powerful in itself.

As a new homeowner, I'd very much like to see my Howard County and Columbia Association yearly taxes/assessments, so that I can see if I've been planning correctly for them (or if I have to set aside more money, which is probably the case). It's weird to me that they run from July 1 on, but nothing seems to have arrived in the mail or appears online when I log into my accounts. When does this info actually become available?

I just moved from YNAB to Zerosum (currently running them both in parallel while I decide). Both apps are manual entry for me. My experience so far:

• Import instructions were very clear and easy using a token. Almost everything transferred in flawlessly.
• However, after looking more carefully, there were small issues based on incorrect values in one credit card. I wrote to the developer, who was absolutely amazing in working with me to resolve the bug that caused it. Within one day, I was able to redo the import and everything was perfect. It's rare to deal with an app developer who is that responsive and communicative.
• The layout and function is very similar to YNAB. One feature in ZS that I appreciate is the ability to group my accounts into as many categories as I want to; this is something I've been hoping YNAB would implement.
• There is no native iOS app, but logging in on Safari and saving a bookmark creates something that looks and feels similar. So I am fine with this! Logging transactions on the go ensures that I won't fall behind in recording purchases.

So far, I am super-happy with Zerosum. Having a solid budgeting system is hugely important for me, and during the times in my life when I wasn't doing it, I felt lost, and would either overspend, or feel uneasy every time I bought something. It's not enough (for me) to know my account balances; I need to also be sure that I've planned for upcoming expenses that are billed periodically, like car and home insurance, real estate taxes, etc. So despite my concerns about the direction YNAB was going in, I was apprehensive about moving to something else, in case it didn't work for me and I "fell off the wagon", as I've sometimes done in the past.

Thanks again to the developer! I plan to run both programs in parallel for a bit and expect that I'll soon be comfortable enough to transfer over.

Just got a Kobo Clara Colour and I LOVE it.

Prior to acquiring the Kobo, I've had Kindles for almost as long as they've been available. Slowly, with each successive iteration, I found myself using them less and less. Part of it is politics of the Amazon ecosystem, and the ads, but after reading with my new Kobo, I realized that most of why I prefer it is the improved UI. Subtle things like the clean interface, the bar at the bottom showing how far I am in the book, the small text on top that reminds me what chapter I'm in, the responsiveness, and the turn-on that happens with one press of the button, (without having to also slide my finger along the screen to 'wake' it).

So here we are. But my question for those of you who were also long-time Kindle owners: Wasn't the Kindle also fun and easy to use at one time? I honestly can't remember all the details of the original interface, but I don't remember it being so annoying! Was that a gradual change?

Or maybe e-readers were such novelties when the Kindle was first released that I was less judgmental then.

I am in the midst of an extreme "valley year" in 2026, where apart from interest and capital gains income, I'm earning $0. I want to do a Roth conversion -- straight-up convert to the 22% bracket, paying the taxes with money I've already set aside for that purpose.

I have talked to a few advisors and I have software (Projection Lab) that all have helped me with general strategies and multi-year planning. But all the advisors have recommended hiring an accountant to help me figure out the exact amount to convert, and also to predict the federal and state taxes I'll owe so that there are no surprises when it is time to file. Is there software that does that job, and only that job? It seems like something I should be able to calculate on my own if I plug in all the numbers, though I'm not sure how to predict the capital gains part.