Get organised this January with these three handy apps.
Call me cliché, but I’m a sucker for the new year, new me overhaul. Every year without fail I will buy a fancy new planning journal, collate some overly aspirational resolutions and slink back into the gym without looking the regulars in the eyes.
I will also momentarily become intensely organised. From planning trips abroad to organising my finances, the new year brings out in me a keen strategist who, only weeks before, was faced with the condescending “Are you still watching?” message from Netflix.
So, for those who are also limbering up for the brief, smug start to 2020 (dry Jan, anyone?), I’ve collated some of the best apps to kick start the new year.
My Fitness Pal
If, like me, you tend to emerge from the latter half of December having had a cheese course with every meal, you might find it helpful to start taking a little more interest in what you’re putting in your body in 2020. My Fitness Pal is an easy way to do just that.
The app holds a vast database of foods, from branded favourites to standalone ingredients, with the nutritional information added alongside. This allows you to get a better idea of the nutritional value of what you’re eating and set goals or meal plans for yourself as you go.
The app also lets you account for any exercise you undertake during the day and gives you a clearer view of how this affects your day-to-day fitness. Because, at the end of the day, it’s probably a good thing to understand the horrifying truth of exactly how much effort is required to burn off half a litre of Baileys.
My Truphone
We all know that the only way to possibly survive the endless dark tunnel of January and February is to ignite the small, shining light at the end: planning a summer holiday. And, given that we’re still riding the new year new me wave, we want to do it in the most seamlessly organised way possible. Enter My Truphone.
My Truphone is a travel app that lets you take advantage of a handy piece of technology called eSIM. eSIM allows those of us with an eSIM-enabled device* to easily switch between data plans and providers. Perfect if you want to travel without accumulating a big scary roaming fee or going through the effort of buying a local SIM card while overseas.
With My Truphone, you can pick a data plan for a destination ahead of your trip. So, say you’re off to Australia: in the app, you can buy a data plan that works in Australia before you set off, and activate it as soon as you touch down — paying one set fee. And, if you’ve decided to sack off the cold weather for the foreseeable future, there’s a global option which includes multiple countries under one plan — perfect for travellers!
Monzo Coin Jar
I sometimes wonder how much money Monzo would owe me if they paid me for the free PR service I so frequently afford them. I love Monzo. A lot of us love Monzo, so it’s not the biggest of surprises that they feature in this list. In fact, perhaps you’re thinking you already know enough about Monzo to skip this section which, by all means, do, but only if you’re already familiar with the Coin Jar feature.
You see, I only discovered this feature a few months ago, despite being with Monzo for over a year. And I keep coming across others that are unaware of this handy little trick.
Monzo’s Coin Jar is simple enough to get your head around. It rounds up every payment you make to the nearest pound and stores it in a separate ‘jar’ where you can’t get your greedy hands on it — I mean, you can, but not easily in the pub, for instance.
Truly, out of sight is out of mind, as I frequently forget this system is running quietly behind the scenes and when I do remember to check it, I’m always surprised at just how quickly it adds up. I also like that you can set yourself a monetary goal in Coin Jar, and it will show you as a percentage how close you are to achieving it.
It’s a really useful tool if you don’t want to drop a load of cash on a purchase in a single month, or if you want to save up a decent sum of money to use charitably without being out-of-pocket as you reach payday.
*eSIM-enabled mobile devices, as of December 2019, include: Motorola razr (2019), iPhone 11 series, iPhone XR, XS and XS Max, Samsung Galaxy Fold, Google Pixel 2, 3 and 4 series’.
