This post has been particularly difficult for me, because I don't have very many on-line tools that make my life easier. However it has proven to be a great learning experience and I've found a few tools and apps that I plan on implementing in my daily routine that will hopefully make my life easier. Next term I will be juggling a full time job, a child in daycare, a child in first grade and 12 credit hours at COCC. Time and money management, and organization will be crucial in my success, the following tools I believe will be helpful.
Maxwell Apps - Money Monitor
I am very interested in the Money Monitor app for my IPhone as a tool to assist my husband and myself in our monthly budget. This is a personal finance tool that tracks and categorizes purchases in addition to sending out bill reminders, available balances in checking accounts, and remaining payments on a debt. Also it has a feature that provides reports that include: expense vs income, account transactions, budgets, bills, categories and can be exported via email.
Toodle Do
This app is intriguing to me as I am a self proclaimed "post-it" addict. I have notes stuck to everything at home and at the office. Usually I condense the post-it's to a "to-do" list and from there check things off. Obviously this system is flawed as I often lose a note somewhere or it falls off and I forget to write it down. This tool can be used with a computer and smart phone which is a huge bonus because it's easier and faster to type than make entries on a handheld device.
Fat Secret
This is a tool I DO use on a daily basis. This is helpful for me to journal and track what food I eat to ensure that I am getting a balanced amount of fat, carbohydrates and protein. It is also useful for me to figure out when I'm not feeling well to go to the journal and see what I ate that may have been the cause.
Epocrates
When discussing this assignment with my husband he told me this is an app he uses on a daily basis as a paramedic. Often times on medical calls when there is a patient who has overdosed on medication or had a reaction to medication that wasn't prescribed to him/her. This tool has provided useful information to identify unknown drugs or drugs in related families so the paramedics can provide emergency life saving measures to treat the patient.
Remember The Milk
In addition to the mention of this app in the assignment instructions it came up on several search engines. I will research this one a little more in addition to Toodle Do. One of the features that attracts me to this app more than the other one is it's use with Google Calendar. After reading some of the blog posts on the website I believe this would be better for me since I can share information with my husband electronically. With our schedules as busy as they are electronic communication is one of the most effective forms of communication we have!