After last week’s super long “favorite things” posts, I needed a few days to get my brain back, haha. As simple as the posts seem, they take me forever to put together!
This will be short and sweet, I promise 😉 I debated whether to even make this post, because I don’t have MANY apps to share, but there are a few apps that I love and/or find useful, so I want to mention them. I apologize, but unfortunately most of these are only on iPhone. I didn’t know this until I started writing this post, although I don’t know anything about the Google Play store so I may be overlooking them.
I’ve included links to the apps in the Apple App Store and the two I could find in the Google Play store. Hopefully the others include Android soon!
happy scale (premium is $2/month, or $12/year, or $40 for life)
This is my favorite weight tracking app. This is VERY USEFUL if you are tracking your weight loss or just want to keep track of your weight for any reason. My weight history goes back to September 2000 (!). I had it written here and there in notebooks, so one day I went through them and entered them all into the app. It’s great to see everything in one place like that.
(Here it is a complete post which I wrote about Happy Scale a couple of years ago; is much more detailed).
Anyway, I have tried many weight trackers and this one is by far the best. You can view charts for periods of one month, one year, all time, etc. You can see averages, highs, lows, weight trend predictions, view your weight as an average over a week or two instead of a daily number, view all your previous entries, etc.
I don’t like apps that do *everything*, e.g. food tracker + weight tracker + exercise tracker + period tracker, etc. I’d rather have an app that does one thing really well rather than an app that does several things. things in a mediocre way. This app is absolutely what I want from a weight tracking app.
I love that Happy Scale still offers a “lifetime” subscription (you pay a one-time cost and have no recurring payments). It’s hard to find apps that do that anymore! I also want to mention that Russ, the developer, is fantastic. When the app was still new, he asked me to try it out and give him some feedback, and I thought it was awesome! I have contacted him several times over the years and he has always been fantastic at getting back to me. I don’t doubt that you treat questions/issues about the app with concern.
I honestly can’t think of anything I don’t like about the app!
Apple App Store: happy scale
Habit tracker (premium is $3.49/year or $6 for life)
I discovered this app recently when I started working on ‘atomic habits’ after reading the book ‘Atomic Habits’ by James Clear. I wanted an app I could use to track habits, but I’d probably already downloaded a dozen of them in the past; They just weren’t what I was looking for.
Once I tried this app, I was HOOKED. This is exactly what I was looking for! Clean looking, not overwhelming (well, unless you want to add 50 new habits to your life, but that will be overwhelming no matter how you track them), very useful and fun to use. As a person who works with numbers, seeing the statistics of how I have stuck to my habits is a great thing.
The only downside here is that it took a while to set up. I included things that were already habits to begin with, but were useful to keep track of. You can change how you track your habits, whether you want to measure this habit by minutes, days, weeks or track things like drinking water by the glass, ounce, cup or even just a yes/no if you reached your goal. water. I have mine set up, so it’s mostly a yes or no deal: I did it or I didn’t that day.
It has several features that I don’t use (maybe I will, I just haven’t tried them yet), like creating habits with another person, different widgets and timers, etc. So far, I’ve only used it to track my daily activity. habits.
After trying it out, I checked the price to upgrade and add more habits (I think it allowed five(?) for free) and found out that they have a unique “pro” option – for $5.99! I’m almost afraid to write this here because I don’t want it to be changed haha. It’s already VERY rare to find apps that do this. It is not a subscription, just a one-time payment. I bought this tracker and use it daily. It’s a great habit tracker!
Apple App Store: Habit tracker
Budget Expense Tracker (premium is $2/month, $5/year, $9 for life)
I’ve always loved the idea of a budgeting app, but I could never find one that worked the way I liked. I can’t really describe what a perfect budgeting app would be for me, but all the ones I tried weren’t. I like to order and organize things in my own way. I like simplicity. And very importantly, I don’t want to have a recurring cost. I was excited to see that this app also has a (cheap) lifetime membership!
Like Habit Tracker, it took a while to set up. Longer, even, because I had to look up the cost of each of my bills and calculate how much we’ve been spending on things like food, gas, etc., so I could make an accurate budget. However, once I set it up, I was surprised at how organized and helpful the app is for seeing where the money went.
So if you’ve tried other budgeting apps without success, this one is worth a try. I think preferences for apps like these are completely personal, so what I like may not have value for others and vice versa. But I wanted to mention this here because I really like it.
Apple App Store: Budget Expense Tracker
Chronometer (premium is $10/month or $55/year)
People often ask me what calorie tracker I use. I don’t track calories anymore, and other than a few days here and there, I haven’t in a long time. My suggestion for the average person looking to track calories has always been Fat Secret (I wrote all about it in this post.). However, Cronometer is my favorite. It’s MUCH deeper about nutrition. Since going vegan, I was more interested in vitamins and micronutrients than calories, and Cronometer is the best for that.
It’s expensive (well, I guess it’s not bad compared to others, but $55 a year is a bit expensive, especially if it’s not the only app you have a subscription to). The free version is really great; the only reason I upgraded was because it allowed me to share my created recipes with Jerry, so he could easily record his food without having to create his own recipes in the app.
Basically, this app is perfect for people who want to see the full spectrum of nutrients and vitamins they are getting. For someone who just wants to count calories, or even macros, there are cheaper and even free ones (I really like Fat Secret for that).
Apple App Store: Calorie counter by stopwatch
Google Play Store: Calorie counter by stopwatch
Duolingo (Premium is $10/month or $84/year)
As much as I love this app, I still use the free version. I wanted to say it from the beginning so you can see that you don’t *need* to be premium to love this app. At the beginning of January, I made a goal to learn a new vocabulary word once a week for the entire year. I was really bad at remembering to do that. A friend mentioned that he had been on Duolingo, a language learning app, for 500 days straight, so I decided to use it instead, not to learn a new vocabulary word, but to learn Spanish!
I took four years of Spanish in high school, but I was never fluent. And having gone, oh, two DECADES after high school without needing it, I just forgot all about it. But using Duolingo has helped me refresh everything and I have learned A LOT more. I’ve been on a daily Duolingo streak for almost 200 days; I do at least one lesson a day, but usually more. They only take a few minutes. Repetition and recall of old vocabulary words from months ago is very helpful in remembering everything I have learned.
I don’t know if I’ll ever get to the point of having a real conversation in Spanish, but just 195 days later, I’m impressed with what I’ve learned. 🙂
Apple App Store: Duolingo
Google Play Store: Duolingo
Well, like I said: short (sort of) and sweet… my favorite apps. If you have a favorite you want to share, do so! (Either here or you can share it on the Facebook post I created for “favorite things.” Here is the link to the Facebook post.)
