"Personally, I've switched to Airtable. It combines spreadsheet functionality with visual boards, and you can customize fields way more flexibly..."
Trello's decent for basic stuff, but yeah, once you start juggling multiple incentives and deadlines, it gets messy fast. Airtable's solid—I used it briefly—but honestly, I found Notion even better for complex home projects. You can embed spreadsheets, calendars, and notes all in one place. Might be worth a look if Airtable ever feels cluttered...
I've tried Airtable and Notion too, but honestly, both felt a bit overwhelming when I was first trying to keep track of my construction loan payments. Maybe it's just me, but juggling all those customizable fields and embedded calendars ended up making things more complicated than they needed to be...
What really worked for me was actually Google Sheets paired with a simple color-coding system. I just set up columns for due dates, amounts, interest rates, and payment status. Each month I'd update the cells and highlight payments in green once they cleared. It sounds super basic, I know, but visually seeing everything laid out clearly helped me stay on top of things without feeling bogged down by features I didn't really need.
Sometimes simpler really is better, especially when you're already dealing with the stress of building a home. Just thought I'd throw that out there in case anyone else feels overwhelmed by the fancier apps.
Google Sheets is solid, but I dunno...doesn't manually updating everything each month get tedious after a while? I've been tempted to simplify too, but worried I'll slack off updating it regularly. How do you stay consistent?
I've been there—Google Sheets is great at first, but yeah, manually updating every month can become a drag. What helped me was setting a recurring calendar reminder (sounds basic, I know...) and pairing it with something enjoyable, like my favorite podcast or playlist. Makes the task feel less tedious. Have you thought about automating parts of it with formulas or add-ons to cut down on manual entry?
Pairing it with a podcast is actually a pretty clever move, might steal that idea myself. Personally though, automating with formulas made the biggest difference for me—saved tons of headaches. Have you looked into any specific add-ons that work well with loan tracking?
