11 Cool Free Things I Did in 2022

I Can’t Believe I Did These Things For Free

What a wild year was 2022.

One big thing I learnt was that money can buy you a lot of happiness. But we are not here to talk about that. We are here to talk about cool things I managed to do for free this year.

Somehow this involved me being stalked by a complete stranger.

Let’s go:

1) Read free eBooks via the public library with the Libby app

I am not paid to say this — Libby is a game-changing eBook app.

Your public library may have bought access to online book databases, and technically you can read them if you have a public library card. One of the common databases they buy is OverDrive. However, OverDrive’s outlook sucks — the text in all books were never aligned correctly; all illustrations were always missing half a chunk; and there were few to none options to change how the words and pages looked.

Then they made Libby.

From here

Libby is the best reading app I have ever used. I can’t believe it’s free. And that I am using it to read free books. It’s better and smoother than the iPad’s Books app. You can highlight words, make book lists, access audio books etc, all for free.

From Libby on Google Play Store

I teach English for a living, and this app has been letting me show free books and tell stories to my kids in mere seconds — I don’t have to log in with my public library card credentials in the school computer; I only need to generate a code in the Libby app on my phone, then go to libbyapp.com on the school computer, and bam! All my borrowed books are available for show to my whole class.

According to the records, I have borrowed at least 60 children’s books to read with the kids with this app for free this year. My favorite children’s book “I Want My Hat Back” is available there. I read Show Your Work! by Austin Kleon and Unschooled by Kerry McDonald on there. Ryan Holiday’s The Daily Stoic and Marie Kondo’s Spark Joy are also available. My jaw truly dropped when I…