It’s almost 2023 and time to channel our inner 2007.
While we’re all still excited and motivated for New Year’s resolutions, it is the perfect time to refresh the apps on your phone. Decluttering and reorganizing will save you both time and memory space. New downloads are just the thing to help encourage the new habits you’re looking to set!
First we delete.
It’s time to get a little critical here. Go page by page, folder by folder, and think about when you last opened each of your apps. If you can’t think of when, it might be time for it to go. You can always redownload it later if you need it again. This is also a great way to help you spend less time on your phone (especially if those time limits on insta are too easy to ignore!).
Now for the new.
Apps for foodies
It’s hard to tell you what to download here because it all depends on where you enjoy eating on the regular. I have found it wildly rewarding having the apps of places I frequent on my phone. Literally, I earn rewards and freebies on the shopping and eating I’d be doing either way. If you must take a specific app recommendation now though, apps like Open Table and Seated offer rewards with restaurants in addition to their features for making restaurant reservations.
Apps for travelers
Need I say more? This is your go-to spot for great prices on flights and hotels. We even run occasional app-only sales that you would be sad to miss out on if you only ever went to our website. We’ll let you know when those sales and other awesome deals are happening from push notifications and we promise not to be too pushy 😜.
Lyft
Or another rideshare option.
Ridesharing isn’t just a great way to get around from campus to the club and back, it’s also a great way to let you travel more broadly. Not worrying about parking spots, public transit delays, the extra fees of car rentals for us under-25ers? Sounds pretty good, right? And rideshares give you just that. Use it to get from the airport to the resort, from one city to the next.
Spothero
Have you ever circled a few city blocks for 15, maybe 20 or more minutes, always just missing the open parking spot because of the car in front of you? When you’re out driving, be it a road trip or a day trip, Spothero can save your day. The app works in over 20 major cities and helps you find and buy parking in garages and even at airports!
Apps for budgeting
Mint
Mint might be the free budgeting app that does the most. You can set goals, track your spending, monitor your bills. While it does have in-app purchases, what they offer really isn’t a huge sell or need. With literally everything from spend-tracking charts to viewing your credit score to filing your taxes IN THE APP, this one kinda has it all. Although this is all big adult stuff and not necessarily fun, it’s definitely important and we love an app that does most of the work for you.
Honeydue
This one’s marketed for the couples out there. It gives you a shared bank account, monthly spending limits, bill reminders, and more. Also it’s completely free to use. While it’s geared towards couples, the app could also make roommate (or travel buddy) expenses easier. You choose how much you’re sharing with your partner on the app so you could keep it as private as you want and simply be able to both contribute towards your monthly bills without having to Venmo request each other back and forth all the time.
Acorns
Woah, investing, scary! Don’t panic, it’s not that bad! As a student there are no fees for using Acorns, but it will cost you monthly once you’re graduated, so get in early and invest during school and then reconsider if you still think it’s worth it with the fees later. Maybe Acorns best feature is connecting it to your credit card and turning on roundups so that what you end up investing is that $0.40 on top of the $2.60 coffee you just bought. The app also lets you contribute whatever, whenever, and set up intervals and amounts of contributions of your own choosing. See, easy!
Apps for school and learning
If you’re taking a language course, this app is a game changer. Now I know translation tools are a “cheat” around learning the language but 1) sometimes it’s just gotta be that way. The assignment needs to be done. And 2) seeing the translation is still a useful way to learning the language’s vocabulary and understanding the grammar mechanisms.
Todoist
This one’s for the ones who either are always forgetting an assignment or are always feeling like they’re forgetting one. The app lets you maintain to-do lists without needing pen and paper. And you don’t have to worry about forgetting where the list is too! If you aren’t sold on downloading the app, they have a website as well. It’s especially useful when you’re balancing a bunch of different tasks for different classes (think end of semester chaos). But really, you can use it for remembering anything: self care routine, shopping list, travel plans.
Night Sky
Ever looked up at night and thought what’s that dot up there? Is it a plane, a star, a planet, a UFO? This app is ideal for answering your night sky curiosities. You can drag and click around or you can use the AR to point your camera at the sky and have it tell you exactly what that dot is up there. The app is also filled with facts and info on the planets, stars, constellations, galaxies, you name it.
Duolingo
Not sure where you’ve been if you don’t know about Duolingo already. It’s really a great way to learn a language, as quick or as slow as you want. It’s also pretty helpful for just maintaining whatever language skills you’ve already gotten. Why lose it all in between semesters or start your study abroad trip without even knowing how to ask where a bathroom is?
Apps for fun
Capcut
While there’s plenty of higher-tech expensive editors, some of us are here for a good time, not an expensive time. CapCut allows you to shoot, edit, and splice together videos or live photos and has a range of effects, stickers, and other add ons. You may already be familiar with some of its templates from your scrolls on Tiktok (that boat one anyone?)
BeReal
If you’ve been holding out on this one, now could be the perfect time. Document your 2023. Live in the moment. Share your travels, triumphs, and everything else. Obviously we all know it for the social aspect it’s intended for, but personally I have no friends or followers on the app and I’ve been using it just as a way to document my life for myself.
Wavelength
If you aren’t already familiar with this game, the aim is to name an object that falls within a spectrum of two opposite adjectives and get your partner (or team) to guess the correct spot on the spectrum. There’s a physical version of the game, but it’s a bit pricey and the app works just as well. The app is the perfect cure for on-the-go boredom without taking up extra packing space.
Apps for self improvement
Headspace
Keep your stress down and your sleep time up. Headspace is filled with meditation, mindfulness, yoga, and even stories and music geared specifically to get you off to sleep. While meditation might not sound exciting, it is proven to be super healthy both physically and mentally and it doesn’t have to take a ton of your time. The free options on the app are pretty limited, but they have a great student-only price that you should really take advantage of.
Drink Water: Drinking Reminder
There are loads of options for drink logging, so why this one specifically? This app provides notifications throughout the day reminding you to drink, offers options to log liquids besides plain water, and features graphs that show your water intake. The app is ad-run, meaning you’ll get ads sometimes, but they’re honestly not that intrusive, and it also means the app won’t cost you anything. If other water tracker apps have annoyed you with their notifications, this one’s pretty customizable on when they arrive, which is super nice.
