I love free things. Seriously. You know what’s even better? Oh, say what, you’ll pay me 1 penny for every dollar I spend? Absolutely! Then I say, “Let’s buy more things because then we get more money back!” Sometimes my rationale doesn’t connect. But that’s okay. Capital One still pays me money! (I am not endorsed by Capital One, but would certainly not decline if they offered! Heaven knows I’ve sent enough clients their way over the last 6 years…do you know how many people comment on my photo card?)

So when it came to my iPod Touch a few years ago, I was all about free apps. If it wasn’t free, I wasn’t going to have it. As a result, I’ve gotten very creative at freebies. Now I have an iPhone so, while all those other suckas out there are spending hundreds of dollars on apps, this girl is cruising the town with two pages of folders of freebies. (Confession: I did break down and spend money on one app. Scrabble. Turns out it was the best app purchase ever. Kevin and I play more Scrabble now than any other game…and we can play each other from across the room or the house or anywhere. And words like “xi” and “qi”—totally legit.)

So anyway, without further ado, I am making a Top 10 Favorite and/or Most Used—and Totally Free—Apps. (Not including Twitter and Facebook apps, which are, like, duh, if you don’t have them already.) In order to not overwhelm you, I’ll break this into two posts to give you enough time to go and download these apps, alright? Alright, good.

Presenting the first 5…

Keeper

This was one of the first apps I searched for and I actually used a different version for a while before finding this one. I used to have an excel spreadsheet with all of my passwords in it, but this is waaayyyy better. Way better. Plus, it’s hacker-proof. If I fail the login three times, it wipes out all of the information. (Which could also be very bad if I’ve had too much coffee and can’t keep my fingers from shaking all over the place. That’s never happened, of course.) I have all my folders organized and within those folders are the titles, logins, passwords, urls, and any additional notes. After 10 seconds of inactivity, the app auto-logs out and I must type in my code again. Genius. Everyone should have this app.

Instagram

Why you should have it?: It’s fun. And who doesn’t like fun? (If you raised your hand, you are so not invited to my parties which are like fun spelled backwards. As in, you can’t get n-u-f of it!) Snap a photo, apply a filter, write a description, and wah-lah! Your photo is published to your instagram feed. You can also sync it with your twitter and facebook. Easy peasy. Oh, and did I mention that you can follow other instagrammers? If you see that familiar square photo popping up on my facebook, twitter, or sometimes here on the blog, it’s the instagram! Your price: free. You’re welcome.

iHome+Sleep

My family thinks we’re crazy, but Kevin and I both track our sleep. Here are some interesting things I found out: I usually need at least 8.5 hours of sleep. Kevin doesn’t. On weekends, I will occasionally get 10 hours of sleep, which is downright awesome! Kevin wakes up at 6:15 regardless of the day. To top things off, I can use this app for my alarm and it shows a constant display of the current weather conditions and temperature. (This is important if I am trying to decide between, say, bare legs or tights.) I can set a sleep album to play when I go to bed too. I mean, this thing is awesome. Plus, if one has sleep deprivation and is begging the doctor for some drugs, here’s a good app to prove one’s point!

Relax Melodies

That being said, I don’t use the above app for it’s sleep sounds or alarm. (After all that hype, you’d think I did, right?) I love Relax Melodies for putting me to sleep. I can pick from a huge number of sounds like river, ocean (my favorite!), winds, rain, piano, birds, etc. or I can put sounds together. Set it for however long I think it will take for me to fall asleep and let the ocean waves carry me to sea slumber. I can also use it as an alarm, but let’s be honest, the sound of rain doesn’t wake me up and I already have a hard enough time getting up in the morning. I have to use a real alarm…actually, two real alarms plus my husband dragging me out of bed before I wake up.

Water Your Body

Because I like to keep track of things and I love goals and graphs, this is a perfect app for me. I drink water (and lots of it!), I log it, and when I reach my goal for the day (body weight in pounds, divide by two and that’s how many ounces one should drink daily), I get trophies and gold stars. I’m practically a child as far as rewards go. There are also great tips included in this app that are very random and fun like: “To grow and produce a single orange, it takes about 13.7 gallons of water.” Who knew? And get this: “Each day the sun will evaporate about a trillion tons of water.” Whoa. So this app makes me be healthier and smarter. Double whammy.

(P.S. Most of these apps come with a lite [read: free] version or a full, paid-for version. I’ve never found an app yet that is so lame enough to require the full version. I always get the lite version. Less calories and all…)