Will be back tomorrow more so to people needing things from me. This week was really hard but I think I really grew from it all. Thoughts of failure and death but no worries, I'm working myself out the woods. I'm just too hard on myself. I need to take small steps. I'll get there

Anyhow, finally chipped away at that app thing I talked vaugely about last post so took me a few days but finally wrote something up that I hope helps at least one person:::

I am an app girl. I use my phone constantly, to the point where I probably need one with a better battery to keep up with me. Here are some Apps I recommend using to grapple with finances or just get a handle on things:

Mint: mint can be used to keep track of all your bills, and eye on your credit score, or a way to watch your budgeting if you are saving up for something. You can customize it to be as vague or as detailed as you like and it will also notify you if it sees abnormal spending or if you go over budget. Pros: quick to understand, very good at its job, pin for security measures. Con: linking accounts can be annoying, initial set up can be an easy 2 hours depending on how thorough you want to be with your budgets, only updates every 4 hours or so, first update is usually 10 am

Widget?: yes

Credit karma: this catches things that Mint doesnt catch, such as student loans and past pings to your credit score. It can also tell you if theres unclaimed money in your name. If your credit score needs work, highly recommend. Pros: keeps that important bit stashed away and lets you check in on it frequently without fear of impacting score. Con: no widget to let me see my score daily to motivate myself; but thats me.

Widget?: no

Savemytime: i am notorious for letting the day go by and feel frustrated that I havent done enough with myself and let the day go by. The free version lets you have up to 9 icons that are customizable for things you want to focus on. I am trying to minimize my phone browsing for dumb things so I can keep track of what percentage of the day I am doing this or that. Pros: easy to use, great interface, addictive to keep track of activities. Cons: $$$ for more than 9 icons, battery draining, inconvenient if you forget to clock your activities, if you dont turn off the home screen setting it will take over your lock screen

Widget?: no

Digit: an app that automatically takes money from you bank account and sets it out of mind, outta sight for a "rainy day". Can tailor it to save more or less and set up a stop limit that it won't save past. Pros: can manually input amounts that you'd like to save, ex: $10, easy to track saving, can stop and withdraw anytime. Cons: may not save amounts every day, have experienced a week where bank kept disconnecting my digit and I had to manually attach it every day to save (seems to be fixed now however), costs $2.99 a month after first 100 day trial

Widget: no

Loop: lets you keep track of your habits and reminds you daily of habits you want to keep and build. Pros: super fun and easy to use, extremely customizable, graphs to show timeline. Cons: annoying to open and tag everytime you do a habit**, does not account for bad habits, can be annoying if youre not that commited

Widget: yes, helps those who just want to open, click and go**