I once heard a minister say that it takes 30 years to finally become of one mind with your spouse.
I’m not sure where he got that statistic from but that is a LONG time.
When my husband and I first started building our life together, there was a steep learning curve.
Read: “Newlywed Marriage Advice: 6 Hard Lessons From My First 2 Years”
Each of us had our own separate and complicated life that we now had to adjust, jam, and chip away at, to accommodate the other person. I’ll admit- something that didn’t come very easily to me was updating my husband of almost every move I made. Where I’m going to be, significant financial decisions I wanted to make, any changes to our plans and on and on.
It sounds weird but at one point, I felt like I was spending way too much time organizing our life!
That feeling has now gone away for 2 main reasons.
The first is that learning curves flatten out and you can get used to most things with time. The second is simply technology. In this day and age, you can find an app for just about anything!
There are several apps that my husband and I now use to better manage our everyday lives as a married couple. So today, I’m sharing what’s working for us: 5 apps for marriage organization.
Side note: I’m not talking romantic apps where you can play cute games and send each other winky faces & pictures with pink hearts. Those types of apps are all well and good but what I’m talking about are practical apps that help us sync, organize and manage our two lives into one.
**I am NOT sponsored by ANY of these app developers. (All of these apps are free & already popular so that would be a bad investment on their part). I’m recommending them simply based on how helpful they’ve been to my marriage!
5 Practical Apps For Everyday Marriage Success
1. A joint bill pay app. We use:
PRISM
Free
Download: iPhone | Android
With marriage comes a whole new financial landscape.
You can expect new responsibilities, new bills, new sources of income, possibly new debt. Keeping track of who has paid what & when can be a source of confusion.
One way to co-manage your financial responsibilities is to use a joint bill pay app. The app we use is called PRISM, and it works like a charm.
Prism allows 2 users to use a joint account, meaning that any changes one partner makes will sync onto the other’s phone.
To start, add each financial responsibility under “Bills” and then add each payment method under “Money”. The app will send you reminders before a bill is due and allows you to select what payment method to use for each bill. (It even alerts you if you are paying a much lower or higher amount than you usually pay for the bill).
Though we find Prism to be simple and user friendly, it doesn’t offer budgeting capabilities like some of these fancier alternatives below.
ALTERNATIVES: Mint, Honeydue Couples Finance <– this one seems really good
2. A cycle tracking / family planning app. We use:
FLO
Free
Download: iPhone | Android
Whether you want children or not, an app like this is crucial.
If you both want kids, you can chart your ovulation cycle which is important for family planning. The awesome thing is that when you get pregnant, you can switch to pregnancy mode and use the same app to track your baby’s development.
If you DON’T want children, this cycle tracking app helps you document details about your reproductive health so that if anything goes wrong (God forbid) you can differentiate between your normal patterns and any abnormal events.
Flo also promotes female wellness by sending you health insight specific to you.
Why is this app crucial for joint use with your spouse? If your partner has access to this information, it keeps you both on the same page when it comes to your health! A partner that is knowledgeable about your health information can advocate for you when you cannot.
Unfortunately, Flo does not automatically sync across 2 phones. This means your spouse won’t see your changes in real time. However, if one person makes a change, the other person can see them by logging out and logging back in.
ALTERNATIVES: Clue Period & Cycle Tracker, Ovia Fertility & Cycle Tracker
3. A Shared To-Do List App. We use:
Apple Notes / Google Keep + Calendar App
Free
Download: iPhone | Android
Like I talked about above, updating, coordinating and depending on your partner to get things done can start to feel like a part time job.
Well, guess what we discovered?
The iPhone notes app gives you the option to create a joint note with anyone. Both parties can see changes as you make them and it works amazingly as a joint to-do list app.
We use it to keep a running list of things that we need to do at “some point.” Things like “Discuss the grocery budget” or “Decide on dates for our family vacation“.
For items that have a set date and time (like if I sign up for evening work training that I don’t want him to forget about), I will add the item (as well as a reminder) to our joint Calendar and choose him as an “invitee“. This adds the item to his calendar as well.
This is helpful because it sends a reminder to both of us so that even if I forget, he remembers!
For Android users– Google Keep is a very powerful app with similar capabilities.
ALTERNATIVES: Wunderlist, Any.do
4. A Multimedia Messaging App. We use:
WhatsApp
Free
Download: iPhone | Android
It’s a good idea to have a messaging app that keeps track of important conversations and pictures/videos that are sent between the two of you. (You don’t want to lose those funny memes do you??)
Regular texting doesn’t get the job done because it isn’t search friendly.
This is why we use WhatsApp.
(If you don’t know about WhatsApp, you are LATE my friend).
I don’t know how many times I’ve had to search for a conversation or scroll our history to remember the details of something we talked about.
Thankfully, WhatsApp is very search friendly and keeps a running log of everything shared in a conversation. I personally love to “star” important messages so that I can easily find them later under “starred”. WhatsApp is also awesome for sending voice notes and making both voice & video calls (which are free locally & internationally using data).
ALTERNATIVES: Signal Private Messenger
5. A Grocery List App like:
Bring! Shopping List & Recipes
Free
Download: iPhone | Android
Have you ever had one of those disorganized weeks where you’ve had to run to the grocery store multiple times because you keep forgetting things?
A grocery list app is essential for that every reason!
Luckily, many of the joint to-do list apps can also be used for synchronized grocery list making,
However, if you want more capabilities, it may be worth your time to get a separate grocery list app. An app like Bring! saves your frequently used grocery products and even add photos to your list (so you can remember what brand you like to buy).
Something awesome about this app is that you can send messages to your partner/group notifying them that you are going shopping or that you have changed the list.
ALTERNATIVES: Wunderlist, Any.do
So there ya go- 5 practical apps for marriage organization.
Now I would LOVE to hear from you out there!
What practical apps have you and your spouse found to streamline your lives? Comment below so we can all benefit!
“…So they are no longer two, but one flesh.”
mark 10:8
Nancy says
Well won’t you look at that?! I could use some of these apps with my roommate (not so much the family planning app lol but you know what I mean) as we do and share a lot together in our home
Deze says
Lol! I love that twist on it Nancy! Definitely, most of these are useful in different situations, not just marriage.
Kristy says
We use any list. Works with Alexa and google. You can add/cross off list items And family members you share with can see it in real time.
Deze says
I’ve heard great things about Any List! I tried it a long time ago. It seems it’s gotten even better since then.