I'm a pretty resourceful person, and hopefully some of my lifehacks can be used by others.
The most secure way to keep your passwords is also one of the easiest - Lastpass
Each person in the family, including the kids, should have their own Google Calendar, shared with each other. This can help make sure everyone can make plans with less of a likelihood of conflicts, without having to call everyone every time.
Save common key combinations, like Alt+Tab to singles keys (F1, in that case) using AutoHotKey
Have a backup strategy for your data. I can recommend a strategy, but first and foremost you must have one. Mine is to have a local drive on my main computer, mirrored to a network drive on the home wireless network. Then CrashPlan installed on a Ubuntu USB stick mounts either the local or network drive and backs up to the cloud. Total cost is 2 2TB HDs (have lasted me years so far) + ~$55/year for CrashPlan.