The following is guest contributed post by Deidre Bakker-Riches, owner of a boutique marketing firm and consultancy, Twlv31 Marketing, and the Head of Communications for Las Vegas advertising agency, Up All Day Creative Solutions (originally published by Mobile Leaders Alliance).
Whether you are a working-woman, mother, wife, or everything all in one, women have a lot of their plate these days. Fortunately with advances in technology and the help of mobile devices – which many women consider to be the new fashion accessory – we no longer have to rely on a bulky day planner or handwritten to-do list to help keep us organized. From work, appointments and bills to shopping, working out and more, here are 7 mobile apps that can be lifesavers when you’re pressed for time:
Mint: Money Manager, Budget & Personal Finance
From Intuit, the makers of TurboTax, QuickBooks and Quicken, Mint gathers all your financial information into one place and automatically categorizes all of your transactions, giving you the whole picture in a way that’s easy to view and understand. You can add the accounts, cards and bills you’d like, then see how much money you have, pay bills, receive alerts and reminders, track your spending patterns, investments and more. Mint is great for women who need a little assistance to keep their finances organized and want to create and maintain a monthly budget for you and/or your family.
Mint is available online or you can download the mobile app on iPhone, Android, Windows Phone and Amazon for free.
Dragon Mobile Assistant
Don’t have time to constantly write emails and texts, add reminders or even do the occasional social media update? Dragon can essentially be your virtual personal assistant — and does a much better job then Siri. The app can quickly recognize and transcribe your words, then it will create and send emails and texts, create calendar reminders, and post updates to Facebook or Twitter. Dragon can also search the web, check traffic and weather, share your location and more — a true timesaver.
The Dragon Mobile Assistant app is available for free on Android and Dragon Dictation is available on iPhone.
Grocery iQ
Grocery IQ includes all the features you would want in a grocery app, including a barcode scanner, list sharing, and integrated coupons that can be emailed or added to your loyalty card. The app stores and organizes your grocery list, as well as tallies up your total bill before you get to the checkout counter. And, if you are like me and buy practically the same items each week, the favorites list will help you save time. You can also edit your list online and it will update automatically on the app.
Grocery IQ is available online or you can download the mobile app on iPhone and Android for free.
Allrecipes Dinner Spinner
Let’s face it — coming up with a dinner recipe every single night can be a daunting task. That’s where the Allrecipes Dinner Spinner comes in. The app gives you instant access to Allrecipes’ collection of member-shared recipes with step-by-step cooking instructions, photos, ratings and reviews. In addition, the Dinner Spinner allows you to keep track of what food items you have at home in a virtual pantry, scan items at the grocery store with your smartphone to find recipes that you can make with that item, or you can use the Dinner Spinner (on iPhone only) to have the app create a recipe for you.
The Allrecipes Dinner Spinner app is available for free on iPhone, Android, Windows Phone 7.
Find My iPhone & Find My Android Phone!
We take our phones with us everywhere these days, so it’s inevitable that we may eventually forget or lose them. Regardless if your phone was left at a restaurant, movie theater, or your child is just playing hide-and-seek with it, Find My Phone apps makes it easy to pinpoint the location of a missing phone so you can easily retrieve it.
Find My iPhone is available for Apple devices and Find My Android Phone! is available for Android smartphones.
MyFitnessPal
Whether you are looking to lose or maintain your weight or simply see how many calories you burned during your last workout, the MyFitnessPal app makes it easy to log your food and exercise from anywhere. Plus, all updates you make on your iPhone or Android devices will automatically be synched with the website platform (and vice versa) so you can see your progress at anytime.
MyFitnessPal is available online or you can download the mobile app for free on iPhone, Android and Windows Phone.
Perfect365 – One-Tap Makeover
Last, but certainly not least, is the beautifying Perfect365 app. We’ve all had those days when your photos are plagued with dark circles under your eyes or maybe you just didn’t have time to put on makeup at all. This wonderful app lets you easily add or enhance your makeup, erase under-eye circles, brighten and smooth our your skin, whitening your teeth, remove any blemishes, and you can even try out a new hairstyle. It just takes a couple minutes and the results look quite natural. And, if you really like one of the touched-up photos, you have the option to purchase the high-rise version so you can have it printed and framed.
The Perfect365 app is available for free on iPhone, Android and Windows Phone or you can download it on PC or Mac for $49.99.
Although this just grazes the surface when it comes to all of the great mobile apps that are available, utilizing just one of the seven options is sure to make a woman’s busy and face-paced life just that much easier.
