free or close to it

Whenever my husband and I manage to squeeze in a date night dinner, I have to be very conscious of my iPhone usage. He does not appreciate the lemme just check this one thing real quick business, not in the slightest. I get it, though. H…

My kids get really excited about President's Day because it means a day off from school. But I'd like to make sure that they spend a little bit of time reflecting on our former presidents too, so I love an app that helps with just that. …

Since starting to Konmari, or "tidy," my home almost a year ago, I've found myself avoiding certain categories of stuff left to purge, like the four large bins of CDs we've had stored in our basement since switching all our music over to…

Welcome to our new weekly series on Cool Mom Tech that introduces you to some of our favorite free apps to download to your devices. Because as much as we love all the useful, fun, and entertaining apps we recommend here, admittedly we l…

If you're tearing through the list of snow day activities to keep the kids occupied when you're stuck indoors, allow us help you with two beautifully designed, really fun new apps we've discovered from Seedling . As in, the same company …

We're big fans of Santa around here, as you might have guessed. What, us risk making the naughty list? Never!) So if you're looking for some fun Santa apps to help bring the big guy to life on your phone, tablet, or laptop and make belie…

Each year around this time, we love sharing our favorite shopping apps with you. Because who doesn't love going shopping and landing a fab deal? Exactly. And how much do you love it when you land that fab deal in the middle of the madnes…

When I'm driving around running errands, I usually have NPR on the radio, unless I'm listening to Spawned , of course. The stories that almost always end up with me in tears, searching for a Kleenex in the console, are the reports from S…

We like to joke about the poor kids who get stuck sitting over at the kids' table on Thanksgiving when, really, they are all having a blast on their own without having to listen to all the boring grownups talk about boring grownup things…

H i Cool Mom Tech, Have you written about a tech solution that gathers photos from all the family computers and phones into one place for backup purposes? - James We've been exactly where you are, James: looking at all the options and sc…

This is a sponsored message from Hobnob With the holidays right around the corner, the free Hobnob app for iOS makes sending invites to your holiday events, and sharing the photos afterwards even easier. Plus, you could win a $200 Target…

Its pronunciation may be in the tomayto/tomahto zone, but when it comes to GIFs there's no debate about their popularity. So, last week when our favorite social network rolled out the Boomerang app that basically lets you produce and sha…

If your kids are having a hard time waiting for Halloween to hurry up and get here, we've got a fun treat to share with you that will keep them busy and challenged this week. Developed by Kano , whose DIY computer kit wowed us earlier in…

It's not like my kids need any additional reasons to get excited about Halloween -- the costumes and candy and thoughts of staying up extra extra late do that for them -- but still, it's nice that there are so many fun Halloween apps for…

This being the year of the emoji , of course someone was going to rock the emoji pumpkin carving idea in a big way. What's better, is that it's BHG and they're making it easy for you to follow along with a whole bunch of cool, free emoji…

Shopping online has been Captain Convenience for so many of us for years now, although when you're shopping for clothes, it can sometimes lean into "this is such a hassle" territory if you've got six open tabs to compare prices at six di…

Where would any of us be without our to-do lists? Probably reclined somewhere on a beach having sweet nothings whispered into our ears by our hot-to-death boyfriend Idris Elba. (Okay. That's just me. Big Driis and I have history.) The po…

When it comes to teaching my kids history, I'll use anything I can get my hands on, from Crash Course and Brain Pop videos , to cool apps like History Here that help us learn the history of places we visit. And now I've found a lighthear…

As the days start to get shorter (sob) and we realize some of us will soon be heading home from work or walking around a college campus in the dark at just 5PM, it's nice to know that walking home alone just got a lot less nerve-wracking…

Warning: It's a jungle out there. No, really. There's a crazy, colorful jungle filled with wild animals and plants for kids to explore, and it's right there on your smart device. Since we always love the kinds of educational apps that ki…

Often, when I see something that claims to be made "for kids, by kids," my suspicious brow goes up and I prepare myself to be underwhelmed. Not the case with #MetsKids , a new website that is -- ahem -- made for, with, and by real life k…

Let's hear it for organizational apps this time of year! What would we ever do without them? After all, back to school also means getting back to routines, which can highlight some of our old systems for staying organized and keeping the…

Every summer I vow that we're going to do enriching activities to keep everyone's brain sharp, but then my resolve melts faster than ice cream on a hot day once we start enjoying the lazy, unscheduled days of summer. But, I've found a gr…

Along with the diapers and burp clothes and countless other pieces of baby gear, perhaps the most valuable things that new (and newish) parents can receive are the BTDT words of wisdom from other parents who are boldly and actively doing…