Shoutout to the $2 paper calendar that beat my $70 planner app

I want to warn anyone thinking about dropping cash on a fancy planner app before you try the free stuff. Last January I paid $70 for a yearly subscription to a scheduling app that kept syncing wrong and pushing my meetings 15 minutes early, so I missed two client calls in one week. My coworker handed me a $2 paper calendar from the drugstore in Austin and I tracked every task on it for 3 months. The paper one stuck to my desk, needed no login, and I actually finished my weekly reviews because I saw the thing every morning. The app had 40 features I never opened, but the calendar had one: write it down, cross it off. Anyone else find a dirt cheap tool that flat out beat the pricey one? Tell me what it was, I need more of these.