Christie Fogarty
Who says you need to wait until the New Year to create new goals for yourself and work toward them? This year has shown us that it’s never too late (or too early) to take the necessary steps to better yourself. With a focus on fitness, finance and overall well-being, we’re sharing our favorite apps to help you reach your goals and balance your mind and body.
Work on Your Fitness
Motivation and accountability are important when creating new routines for your health. Apps that allow you to plan your workouts and track your results can help just as much as a workout buddy.
My Fitness Pal
My Fitness Pal is one of the most popular fitness apps out there. It encourages you to track both your food intake and physical activity in order to be more successful at losing weight and reaching your goals. With a massive library of workouts, as well as a database of foods to help you log your caloric intake, the tools you need are right at your fingertips. My Fitness Pal also integrates with over 50 other apps so you can link your workouts and never miss a beat.
Available only in the App Store, Free membership with a premium option for $9.99 per month
PEAR Personal Fitness Coach
All workouts would be so much easier to get through with a trainer in your ear, both motivating you and teaching you what moves work best for you. PEAR Personal Fitness Coach offers just that with real-time personal training and unique workouts. The app can integrate with other apps and collects data from your devices to help create the perfect workout for you. It also allows you to track your performance so the PEAR Personal Fitness Coach can let you know when to adjust your workout based on your own personal performance.
Available for iOS and Android, $5.99 per month or $39.99 for the year
Sworkit
Each person is on their own personal fitness journey. This means not every workout is a fit for everyone. No matter your overall goal, Sworkit has a workout that will fit your needs and skill level. This app offers six-week programs designed for all fitness levels with a time range that fits into even the busiest schedule. With a library of over 800 exercises and 400 workouts, you can create a program that works for you with the time you have.
Available only in the App Store, $4.99 per month with premium options available in app
Keep Your Finances Healthy
Budgeting and financing has never been easier. With personal finance apps such as the ones below, you can make a savings plan and stick to it.
Mint
Budgeting is important when it comes to finances. Mint is a personal budgeting app that allows you to see all of your accounts in one place to help you analyze your spending and decide the best budget for you. This app shows all of your transactions and, over time, you will be able to analyze your spending habits, cut what you don’t need and create goals for your future. Once you set your budget, the app alerts you if you overspend and assists you with on-time bill payment. Saving for a big purchase? Mint can help with that, too. Simply enter your savings goal and track your progress.
Available on iOS and Android, Free
Level Money
Once you’ve set your budget and made changes to your spending to stay within that budget, you can start paying off bills and setting aside money in a savings account. Level Money assists in keeping track of all of your accounts, as well as your spending based on income. Simply set a goal in the amount that you would like to save and the app will track your transactions and let you know what you can spend outside of your bill payments. This discretionary spending can be broken down per day, week or even month.
Available on iOS and Android, Free
Acorns
Now that you’ve mastered the art of budgeting and saving, you can start investing. Acorns is a finance app that does all of the hard work for you. All you have to do is fill out a questionnaire upon registration and Acorns will recommend an investment portfolio for your account. Then, once you link your checking account and debit card to your account, the app will round up your purchases and transfer the change into your investments. Acorns is protected by bank level security, so you can rest easy knowing that your money is safe.
Available on Android and iOS 11 or higher, $1 per month under $5,000 and 25% of your assets over $5,000
Find Your Happy Place
There’s no question we’re living in stressful times. So turn off the news and turn on these apps to calm your thoughts and focus on your overall well-being.
Headspace
Headspace is a meditation app that is broken down into five categories: calm, focus, kindness, sleep, and wake up. Meditation has been proven to help people reduce stress, sleep better and increase their focus, but not everyone knows how to meditate. This app breaks it all down and helps you learn the proper meditation techniques.
Available on iOS and Android, Free
HelloMind
It’s easy to let stress, phobias and low self-esteem creep into our lives. HelloMind can help relieve those issues in a multitude of ways. All you need to do is choose the area that you need to work on and the app will recommend a treatment based on your responses to a set of questions. Eliminate a phobia, strengthen your mind with a Booster, or relieve stress with relaxation techniques. There’s something for everyone.
Available on iOS 8 or later and Android 4 or later, $12.99 per month
Mindfulness for Children
Adults aren’t the only ones who carry stress and anxiety. Those feelings affect our little ones, too. With Mindfulness for Children, your kids can learn techniques to manage their anxiety with breathing exercises and meditation. Recommended for children ages 4 and older, the app offers guided meditation to assist your children in processing their experiences and restoring their energy and balance.
Available in iOS 9 or later, $2.99
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