Partial capos were mentioned in passing. If you have a standard Shubb capo you can capo across the top 5 strings leaving the bottom (low) E string open. If you then play your normal chord shapes as though the capo was the nut you get the benefit of the low D without having to relearn shapes. Your G shape chords will be in A but that should be bang in range for your voice I would guess for many songs.

Armed with two capos you can whisk further up the fretboard and play in other keys with a dropped bottom note (eg Capo at 3rd fret all way across and partial capo as described in previous paragraph at 5th fret). Makes the guitar look a bit like an accident in a hardware shop though...

Clear as mud that probably but it saves me retuning.