Four Free iPhone Apps for the Busy Woman

By Hannah Towler

Busy women want to keep up with their daily routine without getting bogged down by written lists and stacks of paper. Cell phone applications are a great way to stay organized, but few people want to spend $2- $10 on a phone apps. Luckily, there are excellent apps in the market that can give you exactly what you are looking for without paying absurd amounts of money. Check out these popular iPhone and Android apps that simplify your life.

1. Period Diary
How it works: Period Diary is a free app created to help you track your menstrual cycle. It sounds a little strange, but don’t write this one off. This period tracker app helps you predict your next cycle, tells you when you are most fertile during the month and allows you to record your moods.

Why we love it: Most of these period tracker apps are not free. This one has all the goodies and stats you’ll need to keep up-to-date with your cycle (you know when to try for your next little one!). Each calendar day you’re able to record your symptoms, moods and your weight. After the app gets on track with you, it tells you which week you are fertile and also which day you are ovulating.

2. BigOven
How it works: Big Oven was voted “Readers Choice, Best Recipe App 2012” by About.com. The iPhone app has 200,000+ recipes (as well as your own). This app makes it easy to search and save your favorite recipes, complete with photos and ratings from other users.

Why we love it: Big Oven has this awesome feature that allows you to type in the most random leftovers found in your refrigerator. Then, it generates recipes based on those ingredients so that you can create something new without wasting all your leftovers.

3. Pic Stitch
How it works: You take the photos; they provide a canvas to create a collage. This app allows you to use any photos on your phone to create multi-photo collages. There are ten photo effects, and tons of different layouts you are able to use for your pictures.

Why we love it: This app is a spinoff of Pic Frame, but works just as well and is free of charge. The best part is that you are able to export your collage to one of many places: Facebook, Twitter, Email, Photo Album or Instagram.

4. iHome + Sleep
How it works: The app is basically a glorified alarm clock that records your hours of sleep. You tell it when you go to sleep and you can even set a “sleep album” and “wake album” from your iTunes library to wake to.  The app records your sleep patterns in an archive that averages your sleep hours and snooze cycles.

Why we love it: When you slide the “bedtime” switch at night, your phone automatically goes into an energy saving sleep mode. The regular alarm clock on your phone is not capable of this feature. This app is extremely useful and is fantastic for your phone battery.