Grumpty vs a spreadsheet
The maintenance spreadsheet that fills itself in and emails you.
Plenty of people track home maintenance in a spreadsheet or a Notion page. It's free, it's yours, and it bends to whatever you want. It also has one catch: it sits there quietly and, unless you go and build the reminders yourself, never tells you anything's due.
At a glance
| What | Grumpty | a spreadsheet |
|---|---|---|
| Reminds you | Emails you when it's due | Never, it just sits there |
| Comes filled in | ~100 jobs ready to add | Blank, you build it |
| Reschedules itself | From the day you did it | You edit every cell by hand |
| Goes stale | Stays current on its own | The moment you stop tending it |
| Yours to keep | Export any time | Always |
| Price | Free | Free |
Where a spreadsheet wins
Total control. Your columns, your rules, no account, no company that can shut down or start charging. If you enjoy keeping it, and you actually open it, a spreadsheet is hard to argue with, and you own it forever.
Where Grumpty wins
The catch is that nobody opens it. A spreadsheet can't remind you, and the reminding is the entire job. Notion can now fire a recurring notification, but only on a paid plan, only once you've built the database and automation yourself, and it still doesn't know a single home-maintenance job. Grumpty is the same idea that maintains itself: it comes with the jobs already filled in, reschedules each one the day you mark it done, and emails you when it's time, so it works whether or not you remember it exists.
So which one?
If you'll genuinely keep a spreadsheet up to date and remember to look at it, keep it. If you've started one before and let it rot, that's exactly the gap Grumpty fills.
Questions people ask
Why use Grumpty over a free spreadsheet?
Because a spreadsheet can't remind you, and reminding you is the whole point. Grumpty comes with the jobs already in, reschedules them when you mark them done, and emails you when something's due. A spreadsheet does none of that on its own.
Can Notion remind me about home maintenance?
Sort of, but not out of the box. Notion has no native recurring reminder you can just switch on; the workaround that does fire on a schedule is a recurring database automation, which needs a paid plan and a fair bit of setup, and it still won't know what a house needs or how often. Grumpty comes with the jobs and the timings already in.
Can I get my data out of Grumpty?
Yes, any time. Your jobs export, and your due dates feed any calendar. The pig isn't holding anything hostage.
Compare with others
Stop keeping the house in your head
Grumpty is a free home-maintenance app: add a job once, it tracks the date, grumbles when it's due, and rolls it forward the moment you mark it done. No card.
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