There are apps to assist with pretty much everything. That’s why we asked around, did our research and tested the best “life-hack” (free!) apps that we find most helpful with day-to-day obstacles. From keeping track of finances to booking tables at restaurants, we tested ten apps to cover the essential parts of life, including: finance, transportation, health and resources nearby. Consider these apps your mini-personal assistants that help make your life easier!
FINANCES
Monny is an app designed to track your spending and assist with keeping your finances in order. The app records a daily or monthly report of all your transactions and creates monthly reports to show where your money is being spent. Featuring simple and fast entry to make expense tracking easy, friendly analytical reports, charts, and top rankings, and seperate account books designed for traveling, Monny is one of the top personal finance apps out there. Just remember to add each expense every time you spend!
CheckBook is an organizational finance tool created to help keep track of your expenses. Listed as one of the best mobile finance apps by PC Magazine, CheckBook lets you add your daily, weekly and monthly expenses into one calendar, and an alarm will remind you when your bills are due. It's an easy to use app that requires no account signup and no integrations with your banking data. It lets you add income and expense line items either as they occur, or on specific dates. CheckBook lists all your accounts, reccurring expenses and gives a report of your spendings in a nice percentage graph.
TRANSPORTATION
Waze is a GPS app to help you avoid traffic. The app crowdsources traffic and suggests routes that are the fastest to arrive at your destination. While using Waze, the app will report accidents, road closures, police around you and more. The app uses various factors to create the fastest route to your destination. You can send other Wazers your ETA, sync your calendar events, turn off toll roads completely so you don't get charged for trips, and it even features an auto day/night mode that turns on a dark screen interface at night to help you concentrate on driving. Not a true replacement for Google Maps as it doesn't feature public transist and walking directions, Waze is more focused on drivers. It even lets users tell other users where they've seen police officers so you can stay out of trouble! Check out this comparison between Waze and Google Maps for more.
Uber “Ubbs, Call an Uber, Took an Uber” are familiar phrases you may have heard associated with this app. Uber is a revolutionary ride-share app that makes it easy to get from point A to point B. From rides to friends’ houses, restaurants, or even work functions – Uber is a convenient app we like to use compared to taking a taxi. Here's how to use Uber: 1) Tell Uber where you want to be picked up - use the map and your phone’s GPS to tell Uber your current location so you can be picked up. 2) Let Uber respond - Uber will send you a text notifying you how long you need to wait before getting picked up. When your Uber arrives, you’ll get another text to let you know. 3) Wait for your payment to be automatically charged - your tip is included and you never need cash. That's it!
HEALTH
SkinDeep is a beauty app that scans the chemicals in your everyday beauty and house hold products. Simply scan the barcode on your products and the app will list a hazard score from 1 to 8 based on the products ingredients. The app rates the products in three categories: cancer, developmental/reprotoxicity and allergy. With a database of over 74,000 personal care products, 2,500 brands and 9,000 ingredients, SkinDeep is sure to contain all the products lurking in your bathroom and kitchen cabinets. Using this app may help you avoid certain chemicals that could be harmful for you and your family. Learn when there are carcinogens in the products you use and get extra info about all hazardous ingredients and their side-effects. Check out GeekInsider's helpful review here.
SleepTime listed among the best sleep apps by Livescience, SleepTime uses your body’s natural sleep cycle to wake you up feeling rested and energized. If you were to wake up during a period of deep sleep, you could start your day feeling drained, sleepy and groggy. SleepTime is a sleep-tracking app that monitors your sleeping patterns and level of movement throughout the night. The app monitors 3 different stages of sleep: awake, light sleep and deep sleep plus the REM sleep stage (the stage where dreaming occurs and your eyelids flutter;), and graphs your sleep patterns so you can see how your sleeping patterns change over time.The app also customizes your sleep data in easy-to-read charts, helping you to wake up when your body and mind is at a full night’s rest.
DINING OUT
Yelp is a resourceful app that lists businesses around your current location. The app searches for any business you are looking for, from restaurants to the nearest movie theatres. Ratings about the business, photos and customer reviews are included to help the user find the best business they are looking for. It gives you the most important info about the business right up front, including hours open and and "Open" or "Closed" indication for the curent time, a map to the location, phone number, overall review score, and the distance from you to the business. Yelp features a Nearby tab that lets you filter the amount of local businesses to view by a whole host of categories, including nightlife locations, hot new businesses or financial services. Check out Mashable's 11 Things You Didn't Know About Yelp here.
BONUS
BlueLight The blue light on your electrical devices has been shown to interfere with a person’s sleep cycle and throw off regular sleeping patterns. Studies have repeatedly warned that using electronic devices such as smartphones and e-readers in the evening affects both the quantity and quality of our sleep. Exposure to blue light at night is especially bad, as it effectively tricks your brain into thinking that it’s still daytime. It also suppresses the secretion of melatonin, a hormone that is produced at night and prepares the body for sleep.The BlueLight app adjusts the lighting to the time of day, allowing a cooler color during the day and a warmer color at night. The changing light will decrease eye strain and assist in getting a better night’s sleep. Read more about how your electronic devices are affecting your sleep in this great WebMD article.
We hope the apps will make your life easier as they have helped us throughout the years. Be sure to comment on our Facebook & Twitter pages for the ones you like the most and if any of these apps have made your life easier!