Are you guys as ready for the weekend as I am? Happy Friday everyone, you know what that means, another addition of the weekly blog. I’m always asking for new topics to write about and I’ve gotten some great suggestions recently so keep them coming! Most of us are on our phones pretty regularly throughout every day. And while yes many can find faults and complaints with that, there is no denying that phones provide numerous benefits and values that have become mainstays in our lives. A lot of it is through no fault of our own. If you have a job, kids, responsibilities, it’s expected of you to be available nearly 100% of the day. You need it for work, to keep in touch with people, to look up instructions on dinner or how to fix your flat tire. No matter how you look at it, cell phones have enormous benefits and abilities that if utilized can make your life easier and more productive. For this blog I wanted to skip over the obvious apps like Facebook, twitter, Tik Tok and apps like those. For this, I wanted to highlight 7 apps I use pretty regularly that have a significant impact and make my daily life easier! So I hope you enjoy and find a useful app or two out of it. As always I love to hear back so shoot me some of your favorite apps or even ideas for my next blog!
Remote/Robyte- This one doesn’t need explaining. If you’re like me, you have way too many remotes in your home and they go missing so often you could swear someone was sneaking into your house and hiding them. Each television set has a remote, each television set also has a Roku or Cable box which also each have their own remote. Whether it’s misplacing the remote or just being in a comfy position and realizing it’s across the room, a remote app on your phone will end up being such a convenience. I have a specific spot in each room for all the remotes and I honestly barely touch them now. The app on my phone can control every tv, and every Roku or cable box or any source.
AnyList- I love this app. It’s simple yet very effective. Basically it’s like your notes app but way more helpful. You can organize your lists by store, place orders online through your list app, save recipes, create a meal plan and more. It’s connected to stores and products that are available will autofill as you type them so you’re not searching through a bunch of lists or typing out entire products while making your shopping list. It organizes the products on your list into categories based on which department they are in and you can cross them off as you go. You can even specify quantity, size, price and more!
Shop- I recently discovered this app and I love it. It’s so simple yet such a huge help to me. Since it’s become a trend, I’ve definitely increased my online shopping year in and year out. You can hardly ever find me in a physical store. If I can get it online, I usually will. I have little to no motivation to do the old hustle and bustle of going to an actual store and going shopping. And with Amazon and many companies having their delivery time down, sometimes to even 1 day (*Cough My Way Leases Cough*) there really is little reason to shop anywhere but online!. Well don’t worry shop won’t lead to you spending any more money, it’s just all about organization and convenience! If you connect your email account and the account of any website you order from like Amazon, it will automatically track all your orders in one spot and keep you completely up to the minute on where your delivery is and when it’s scheduled to arrive! It just makes tracking and following all your orders and deliveries so much easier!
Ibotta/Receipt Hog- Do I have any penny pinchers in the group? I have had a lot of these apps recommended to me so I thought for fun I’d download as many as I could find and over a month or two start dwindling down to one or two that I thought were the easiest to use and gave the best rewards. Whether you’re living paycheck to paycheck or own a private island, anyone and everyone loves saving money. Why pay one price if you can get the same exact thing for cheaper? Now fair warning: a lot of these types of apps give different levels of rewards and savings based on your location. The more densely populated an area the more stores in that area participate in apps like these. My recommendation is to download a few at a time and try them out. The reason I chose these 2 is because they are easy and give good rewards. All you have to do for both is link whichever online accounts (like amazon) and when you check out it will automatically check and see if you’re eligible for rewards or savings! You can also take your paper receipts from in person shopping and upload them with a simple picture. You can then cash out your rewards or trade them in for gift cards and other prizes.
Pacer- If anyone is getting into cardio, going for jogs, walking your dog or any time of walking or running this app is for you. You can link your music and play your music through the app while you move! On top of that it does an amazing job of tracking your route, steps, distance, calories burned and more. It tells you your average speed and how much elevation you climbed during your walk with a color coded map that shows your route and the speeds at different points. It makes it super easy to save, track and share so you can see where others are walking/running and share paths with others! It’ll also save all the data so you can see your trends and insights and compare weeks and months and see how much you’re improving!
Fooducate- I don’t care if you think you're a little overweight, muscular, skinny or somewhere in-between, mostly every person has body goals and most would like to eat better if not for looks than for overall health. There are numerous obstacles and hurdles to face to figure out your perfect diet but one of the biggest ones is having to track your meals and what you’re eating. Before this app, I had tried to keep journals but a lot went into that. It takes your height, weight and goals into consideration and calculates a daily calorie number for you to aim for. It can be connected to your fitness app and adjust for any calories burned that day as well. With a solid foundation of users, there are a lot of already pre loaded meals and foods in this app so you won’t have to enter a customized meal every time you eat. You just start typing the name of a food you ate and it will pop up with the different types, sizes and quantities and give you a pretty accurate value! It’s also got a great place for recipes, tips and tricks from other users!