Open Source Software
As someone who relies heavily on Free, Libre & Open Source Software (FLOSS), here are some of the software packages I use and recommend others check out, whether or not you are on a tight budget or not. While these will have a learning curve, as would any new software you might be unfamiliar with, once you learn to use it, you will fly through your projects in no time.
Training for these programs is in the works over on my other site, I Do Tech Work.
GIMP (Photo Editor)
Some label this an Open Source Photoshop. GIMP is an amazing raster graphics editor, offering amazing features, and is the main program used here for photo editing.
Inkscape (Vector Graphics)
Inkscape is the software used here for creating the amazing royalty free vector graphics offered, and is what is used to convert them into png graphics.
LibreOffice (Office Suite)
Paying for an office suite that does all LibreOffice offers for free is just wasting your money. Then again I run a fully free and open source environment here, so I might be a bit impartial.
Audacity (Audio Editor)
While I barely scratch the surface on what this amazing audio editor can do myself, being a free and open source method for recording a single or multi track audio setup, I love Audacity.
Web Tools
Here you will find a curated list of helpful tools to do various things with your site. None of these are paid affiliate links, but simply tools I have either discovered or have been brought to my attention I feel might be helpful to you as well.
Canva allows for creating graphics online, with many options available for free. Canva does also offer paid packages which provide additional features.
Anytime you make hosting changes in your site's domain name system (DNS) there may be time needed to help visitors see those changes. This is called propagation. DNSMap provides an easy to use web interface to check for you. Just type in your site's URL and click Check DNS propagation.
A valuable tool for keyword research use data from Google. Great tool for finding out what people are looking for, especially if you create content designed to answer those questions people have. Best of all, it's free to use.
Need emoji's? Why not use a copy & paste source like GetEmoji.com.
Sejda is the only online PDF editor I can recommend. The free options is amazing if you don't need to redact and only have a few PDFs to edit. I have used and recommend the paid option if you have a large amount of files or need a proper redaction (removal) option. Sadly most only editors treat redaction by placing a removal shape layer over the text, which allows for revealing redactions.
Templates
In-house created templates for social media use, provided in SVG format, you can use free of charge. Works great in Inkscape.