It’s a late post this week as it’s been a busy week and Mr. McGoozle is preparing to take off to the wilds of Canada tomorrow. (Featured photo from skiing yesterday.) For today I thought I’d quickly share 5 apps that I personally find helpful and would recommend to others. Where possible I have used a referral link just so you’re aware. Now, in no particular order:

Seek

I’m trying to learn more about the flora and fauna around me but there’s just so much to know! Seek by iNaturalist is helpful as I can quickly snap a picture of a plant, insect, or bird and get an idea of what it might be. It’s not successful 100% of the time and it does require a data connection of some sort but it offers a good starting place. And, if I’m out of service, I can still take a picture and upload it into Seek later to try to find a match. Other helpful apps that are similar but specific to birds are the Audubon app and the MerlinBirdID app from Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

YNAB

This is the budgeting software we’ve used for the past 7ish years. We had a budget before using YNAB so I can’t say that it completely revolutionized our lives or anything but it did make keeping track of the budget a lot less painful. As long as we enter transactions promptly then we can both see in real-time how much money we have left in the various budget categories and, if priorities have changed, move money from one category to another. It’s basically a cash envelope system in a digital format. The software subscription is a bit pricey but you do get a free month to try it and all of their educational material is free so you could technically use the method (which is the real power of having a budget) while using a spreadsheet or sheet of notebook paper.

Scribd

If you read my last book update post, then you heard about Scribd. It’s the Netflix of audiobooks and ebooks. We use it extensively for personal entertainment and homeschool resources. I especially appreciate that they seem to have a lot of books from Christian publishing houses which is something our public library system does not cater to.

Story Graph

You also heard about this app if you read the December book update post. I haven’t been using it for long but it’s been a fun way to track my reading and I like the interface better than GoodReads. I did recently learn about the BookRoo website/app that I’m tempted to use to track Stubby’s reading. (He’s currently taking a break from reading The Lord of the Rings to read some of the Guardians of Ga’Hoole series.)

Read Your Body

This one is a bit personal but also an app that I find invaluable. I’ve used Read Your Body for fertility tracking for a couple of years now and it’s really easy to set up in a customized way to meet your needs. More women should know about it so I thought I’d share. Also worth knowing about if you track BBT is the wearable thermometer Tempdrop. I’ve had mine for almost 4 years and it’s so nice not to have to wake up and chart.

Thanks for reading. I’ll be back next week with another day in the life for January.