Best apps for fighting back-to-school burnout
Between back-to-school shopping, learning new routines, carting kids to their various sporting events, and trying to keep everyone’s new schedules straight — parents from coast to coast are already experiencing some serious back to school burnout. Here are a handful of apps that will ease the transition and help make your whole family’s life a little bit easier right now.
Varagesale
Have you ever realized how expensive a graphing calculator is? Before you shop for one—or any school accessory that will be just as good used as new—check Varagesale. Varagesale is like a huge neighborhood rummage sale where you can score secondhand items right from your own neighbors. You’ll feel safe buying from people in your neighborhood and save a ton of cash along the way.
The site reminds me a lot of the early days of Nextdoor, but with a more focused mission to buy, sell and swap. You can find gently-used school uniforms, band instruments, electronics, textbooks, sports equipment, even clothes and basic school supplies. If you’ve ever made a mad-dash to Target late on a Sunday night (like I just did) to try to find some “oh mom I forgot I need this [totally obscure random mandatory must-have] by tomorrow,” this app could save your sanity.
PijonBox
One of my fondest memories of college are the care packages my mom lovingly packed and shipped to me every few months. If you want to keep your student well stocked while they’re away at college, give PijonBox a try. It’s a service that sends care packages full of goodies that students both want and need, like organizers, healthy snacks, household items they probably forgot to pick up themselves, and even awesome accessories. Just sign up, pick the gender (or leave it neutral) and PijonBox will start shipping monthly goodies for as low as $23. I love this one.
LaLa Lunchbox
LaLa Lunchbox is a great time saver that will help younger kids develop good eating habits from a very early age. The box itself is a quirky, kid-friendly connected app that labels every food item with a different goofy monster as they toss it into their bag lunch. It’ll get kids involved in making their own lunch each day, so you don’t have to keep tossing PB&J’s with only one bite taken out of them.
Doctor on Demand
The Doctor on Demand app helps deal with the inevitable back to school bugs that hit this time every year. Using your smartphone or tablet, you can talk to a qualified physician, pediatrician, or psychologist on demand, and get advice or guidance as soon as you need it. Want to do the entire back-to-school check-up on-demand in your own home? Depending on where you live — Heal will bring a well qualified doctor right to your own house — no months-long waiting for an appointment or germy waiting rooms needed.
Sesh
We all want our kids to succeed in school, but sometimes their homework can be tough for even grown adults to grasp. Sesh is the on-demand tutoring service that comes right through your smartphone or tablet, giving students the helping hand they need to crush tests and ace essays. You can be sure that your student is getting the best one-to-one mentoring possible thanks to Sesh’s strict review process, and rates start at a surprisingly affordable $25 per hour.
What apps are helping you settle into the new school year? Be sure to let us know in the comments section.
Jennifer Jolly is an Emmy Award-winning consumer tech contributor and host of USA TODAY's digital video show TECH NOW. E-mail her at techcomments@usatoday.com. Follow her on Twitter @JenniferJolly.