We get it: The daily grind is real. In the interest of making life’s more tedious tasks easier, we put together a list of 25 free tools worth trying.
Image Credit: Eva-Katalin.
1. Glympse
The free GPS locator tool helps families and friends “check in” with one another. Let your spouse know what time you expect to get home from work, for instance, or request the location of your teen — without infringing on their privacy.
Image Credit: Courtesy image.
2. Dark Sky
Dramatically reduce the odds of getting stuck in a rainstorm with this free, popular and notoriously accurate weather predictor.
Image Credit: Courtesy image.
3. Qapital
Qapital automates your savings by transferring money from checking to a special account each time you spend, start a new week or do something you’re prone to do — like post to Instagram or add a song to your Spotify playlist.
Don’t like doing your money digitally? This free, easy-to-use budgeting spreadsheet is the perfect alternative.
Image Credit: Courtesy image.
4. Venmo
Consider me a Venmo convert: The mobile payment app is uber-convenient when it comes time to split a bill with friends or pay for your portion of a joint baby shower gift.
Image Credit: Courtesy image.
5. Blooom
Tap the online robo-adviser for a free analysis of your 401(k). It’ll unearth any hidden fees and provide suggestions for how to maximize an employer-sponsored retirement account. Further management or monitoring costs $10 per month.
Need to boost your nest egg? Check out these five easy ways to save more for retirement in five minutes or less.
Image Credit: Courtesy image.
6. Hotwire
The travel website helps you book airline tickets, hotel rooms, rental cars and vacation packages at discounted prices. It specializes in last-minute travel, offering exclusive deals and planning tools for spur-of-the-moment getaways.
Image Credit: Courtesy image.
7. GasBuddy
Save money and time at the pump by locating the cheapest gas in your area or while you’re on the road.
Image Credit: Courtesy image.
8. Evernote
The free version of this popular note-taking app and browser extension helps you manage everyday project and tasks, “clip” pages, articles, recipes, images, PDFs and more on the web, and keep a journal.
Image Credit: Courtesy image.
9. Honey
The free browser plugin automatically finds and applies coupon codes at checkout for online shoppers.
Image Credit: Courtesy image.
10. Paribus
The shopping app monitors price drops at stores with price guarantees and notifies you when you’re eligible for a rebate. It also tracks shipments from a few chains, including Amazon and Walmart, to get you money back on late deliveries.
Image Credit: Courtesy image.
11. Blink Health
The site lets you search for discount prescriptions online and pick them up from any pharmacy. Here are eight other ways to save on prescription drugs.
Image Credit: Courtesy image.
12. Grammarly
The free Chrome plug-in helps fix critical grammar, punctuation and spelling errors. Grammarly’s premium version, which checks for plagiarism, wordiness and more, costs between $11.66 and $29.95 a month, depending on how you pay.
Image Credit: .
13. Coverage calculator
Getting life insurance is probably on your list of adult things to do and figuring out how much coverage you need is a great place to start. You can do that with this free life insurance calculator.
Image Credit: Courtesy image.
14. Credible
The online marketplace helps borrowers compare rates on private student loans, student loan refinancing and personal loans across lenders.
Image Credit: Courtesy image.
15. Truebill
The app aggregates your current recurring subscriptions and helps you cancel unwanted services. It’ll also negotiate certain bills for you. That service is free if they don’t get anywhere, but, if successful, Truebill’s fee is 40% of the savings.
Image Credit: Courtesy image.
16. Stepz
Skip the pricey fitness tracker by downloading Apple’s free pedometer app, which counts your steps, calculates your burned calories and lets you set up and track daily goals.
Image Credit: Courtesy image.
17. Shopkick
The shopping app lets you earn rewards or “kicks” for walking into participating stores, scanning certain barcodes and, yes, making certain purchases. You can redeem your “kicks” for gift cards.
Image Credit: Courtesy image.
18. LendingTree
The online marketplace lets you compare rates across lenders when shopping for a mortgage, auto loan, personal loan, home equity loan or business loan. It also offers free monthly credit scores.
Don’t like the scores you see? Check out these five ways to improve your credit in 30 days or less.
Image Credit: Courtesy image.
19. TurboTax
The online tax preparer has a number of products to make squaring up with Uncle Sam simple, including two free versions: The Free Edition, which helps anyone file a simple 1040EZ/1040A and the Freedom Edition, which lets low-income Americans file federal and state returns.
Image Credit: Courtesy image.
20. IRS withholding calculator
Speaking of taxes, double-check your 2018 tax withholding with the IRS’ online calculator. ICYMI: About 21% of taxpayers are not setting aside enough money from their paychecks to cover their tax bill this year.
Image Credit: Courtesy image.
21. Pocket
The basic bookmarklet lets you save stories, videos or more for later from your browser, Twitter, Flipboard, Pulse and more. Its Premium version ($44.99, if you pay for a full year) lets you skip Pocket’s ads and offers more sophisticated search-and-organize features.
Image Credit: Courtesy image.
22. Boomerang
Boomerang’s Basic service gives Gmail users 10 credits to schedule emails, receive follow-up reminders and take messages out of their inbox until they’re actually needed. Its personal version — which lets you do the same things an unlimited number of times — costs $4.99 per month.
Image Credit: Courtesy image.
23. Waze
The free navigation app provides directions, traffic updates, the fastest routes, highway accident notifications and even police presence alerts while you’re on the road.
Image Credit: Courtesy image.
24. Kayak
The travel search engine’s newest feature helps you skip baggage fees by scanning your suitcase — no actual picture required. Look for this “bag management tool” in the Kayak iOS app.
There’s a lot to know about airlines — use this airline-by-airline guide to help you have all the information you need.
Image Credit: Courtesy image.
25. Parking Panda
Parking Panda helps you find, compare prices, reserve and redeem parking spaces in garages and lots in more than 40 U.S. cities.
Image Credit: Courtesy image.
26. CamCard
The free app-plus-scanner makes it easier to manage and swap business cards with other entrepreneurs, co-workers, clients and more. A premium version with unlimited scans, zero ads and multi-device support costs $4.49 a month or $46.99 a year.
This article originally appeared on Policygenius and was syndicated by MediaFeed.org.
Image Credit: Courtesy image.
