Best apps for busy families

There’s nothing better in life than spending quality time with your family, but with your family’s busy schedule, it can actually be rather challenging to achieve. Check out these apps to help get your life a little more organized!

Being organized may seem like a waste of time to some, but spending the necessary time to get yourself and your family organized is actually a great method of adding time to your day. This extra time can be spent starting a new project you’ve been eyeing, baking cookies with the kids or watching a new movie with your husband. It’s these little things that make life fulfilling and nurturing — so this summer, let’s commit to getting more organized. We can start having more time for the things we love with apps that will make our lives a lot easier.

Cozi

Cozi has been voted the number-one app for moms, by moms. Cozi is a free app and website that helps you organize and keep track of your family’s calendar. It’s your go-to spot for after-school activities, meals, grocery lists, chores, social events and more.

• Pros: great list-maker, organizes day-to-day schedule in clear, easy-to-read format
• Cons: no family finance or budget tool

Bank of Mom

Bank of Mom is ideal for teaching kids about allowances and finances. Create a bank account for each child and deposit cash for chores completed. You can also reward good behavior by banking a favorite activity — such as watching television, having a friend over or playing video games — and your child can withdraw the reward when they please.

• Pros: simple to use, great tool for teaching financial basics to children
• Cons: it can be hard to stick to, in other words, your kids may just come directly to you for money when their account runs out

Toodledo

If you live for creating lists, Toodledo is for you. Organize each task with folders, tags and subtexts, so you can easily search through and reorganize all your tasks. You can set alarms for when each task needs to be accomplished, helping you stay productive.

• Pros: extremely customizable and flexible, alarms and reminders ensure your lists will get completed
• Cons: no group task-management features, some options are complicated to access

Food on the Table

Food on the Table is a wonderful — and free — app for helping busy families plan their meals. First, you enter in the name of your grocery store and it alerts you of weekly sale items. Next, browse thousands of recipes and mark which ingredients you need versus which ingredients you already have. The app creates a grocery list customized just for you each week.

• Pros: makes planning meals extremely simple and fun, helps you save money when planning meals
• Cons: recipes are all relatively simple, experienced cooks may prefer a more advanced app

ShopSavvy

Do you spend a lot of your time looking for the best deals and driving around from store to store? If so, you can eliminate this by getting ShopSavvy. ShopSavvy finds the cheapest price of whatever item you’re looking for — clothes, groceries or household items — and tells you where you can find that item both locally and online.

• Pros: saves you time and money when shopping, simple to use
• Cons: small, local stores and results are extremely limited, scanning is slow

More on time management

Four stress-less tips for working moms
Finding time: Time management tips for new moms
Working Mom 3.0: When you’re the team