5 Smartphone Apps to Make Your Life Easier!

Take a trip down memory lane, go back to the late 90's or early 2000's when the cell phone was still in its infancy. Although I wasn't old enough to own a pager, I am sure everyone thought the early cell phone was the greatest invention since egg salad sandwich. Luckily, the cell phone has come a long ways from its early designs and now we are blessed with smartphones. 

Zack Morris, clearly had the greatest cell phone of all time. 

The smartphone is great for so many 

things: Facebook, Twitter, Words With Friends, Angry Birds, and using Google to settle arguments with friends. 

The smartphone also offers apps that can make your life easier. Here is a list of a few apps that we believe will help reduce the stress in your life so you have more time to watch cat videos on YouTube. 

Clear

Do you have a lot to do? Do you like to make lists? If so, this is the perfect app for you. Clear, allows for you to sort thoughts into different groups. So if you have a long to-do list in the afternoon or you're just trying to remind yourself of a brilliant idea you have, this is the perfect app for you.

Instapaper

Picture this: You're sitting in the waiting room at the dentist and you're browsing the internet. You find an article that peaks your interest and just as you begin to read they call you in for your appointment. No need to worry about losing this article with Instapaper, you can easily save this web page for reading at a later time. 

RedLaser

The perfect app for someone who is busy and someone who shops smart. RedLaser is an app that allows for you to scan the bar-code or an item and it will give you the prices of that same exact item at nearby stores. 

Shazam

My wife is known for loving a song but not know who or what the song title is. Luckily for her, I introduced her to Shazam, which is an app that helps you identify a song in as little as a second. It also gives you the opportunity to preview or buy tracks. 

Seamless

The future of ordering take-out is here. Seamless provides you with the opportunity to place your order from over 12,000 different restaurants and delivered to your doorstep. It provides you with ordering memory, so that you can place a duplicate order for the office should you want to order the same thing weeks later. 

In the End

Hopefully you will find all of these apps or even just one of them as a useful tool in your day to day life. The smartphone is a great tool to help make life easier and we believe that all of these apps can help you do just that. 

Spalding Insurance Agency is an independent agency with locations in East Lansing, Michigan and Perry, Michigan. We want to make your life easier. For a quote on your personal or business insurance click here.

The Shopping Cart (Part Four)

It is time for the Grand Finale!!!! This should be the last time I write about shopping carts in a long time. Lets examine what we have learned, so far.

1)Shopping carts are great tools
2)Shopping carts need to be returned to their proper station after use.
3)By not returning your cart, you are driving up car insurance premiums.
4)Shopping carts are dangerous.
5)All of my theories on this subject are based on the butterfly effect.

So based on the butterfly effect, by not returning your shopping carts not only are you a terrible person, you also creating worse customer service. Don't believe me? Here is how:

A busy day at the store means more employees are needed, which is a good thing. More employees typically means better service or shorter check-out lines. But that can't happen if the extra employees are out wrangling shopping carts. So next time you hit up your favorite grocery store and have to wait in a long line and wonder "why are only 10 of the 45 checkout lines open?", odds are it is because their extra staff is out cart shop wrangling. Moral of the story: Return your shopping carts when you are done with them or the world will end.

I hope you have enjoyed this mini-series and learned a lot. Even if you haven't learned anything, I hope you have been entertained. Either way please keep this information in mind next time you're out shopping.

The Shopping Cart (Part Three)

I have recently had an infatuation with the role the shopping cart plays in our lives. It is a pet peeve for me to watch people not return their shopping carts to a proper station when they are done using them. So I swore to my wife a few weeks back that I was going to explain to people the importance of returning your cart to the proper place. So far we have examined two reasons:

1) It is a pet peeve of mine that plays a major role in our life.(Think Butterfly Effect)
2) Not returning your cart can increase everyone's car insurance premiums.

Those aren't the only issues with not returning your cart. Believe it or not a lot of injuries occur because of those carts running free in the wild.

According to The United States Consumer Product Safety Commission about 21,600 people are injured in shopping cart related accidents each year. Now I am not saying this is all due to wild shopping carts but I am sure that a small % of injuries are from them.

Or how about the employee of the store having to chase down a shopping cart in the parking lot. Their possibilities for an injury are endless. Maybe they roll an ankle, pull a hammy, or tear an ACL. Freak accidents like that happen all of the time. All because a lack of responsibility.

A shopping cart is a tool, one that we are blessed with. Imagine life without the cart. But with all tools, it is important that we take care of them. By returning your cart to the proper station you can help people avoid injuries.

July 21st, 2013 will be the first ever "Return Your Shopping Cart Awareness Day". Together we can make a difference!

The Shopping Cart (Part Two)

How important is it to properly return your shopping cart to a station once you are done with it? Extremely important, so important, that I am going to go all R. Kelly on you and write about it over four different parts.

Today we focus on Part Two, how a shopping cart plays a role in your insurance premiums. In case you missed it, click her for Part One, on why returning your shopping cart is a big deal. So how does a shopping cart running rampant in the parking lot play a role in your insurance premiums? Here is a story for you:

Mandy calls her husband Joe on the way home from work and asks if he can stop for some groceries. Being the good guy that he is, Joe, stops into the local store and grabs a cart. After checking out, Joe, loads up his grocery cart with his bags and returns to his car. Since he is in a "hurry" he decides to just leave his cart in the middle of the parking lot, since he must save himself the 35 seconds it would've taken him to do the right thing.

Joe leaves the parking lot and in pulls Mary to a spot a few places down from where Joe left his cart. Mary walks into the store unaware that her car is about to fall victim to Joe's laziness or carelessness. Mary returns to her car and notices a huge scratch along the side of the vehicle. There was a huge gust of wind while Mary was shopping and unfortunately for her, the shopping cart sideswiped her car leaving her in an unfortunate situation, the need to file a claim.

So how is it that this story affects your insurance premiums and not just Mary's? The thing to remember is that insurance companies distribute risk among a large number of people. So anytime a company pays a claim (or doesn't) it can affect rates for everyone insured by that company. Ideally your insurance company never pays claims to anyone, thus reducing their expenses and rates.

Assume that all throughout Michigan, insurance companies pay out tens of millions of dollars in claims for losses involving shopping carts hitting parked cars. This directly results in unnecessary expenses for insurance companies that results in higher premiums for everyone. If we look back on our example, Joe leaving his cart and the resulting claim might directly affect our car insurance premiums.

The next time you're at the grocery store and either in a hurry or too lazy to walk your cart down to the return station, remember that your actions will play a role in your car insurance premiums.

Do you know someone who doesn't return their shopping cart to the return station? Hit the share button and let them know why they should!

P.S. Remember that National Return Your Shopping Cart Awareness Day is July 21st.

The Shopping Cart (Part One)

The shopping cart, a beautiful thing, but that last thing you want to see resting against your car when you return to the parking lot. (Unless you owe someone a lot of money and their goons are leaning against your car when you return)

So it was to my amazement that upon returning to my car and spotting a shopping cart nestled between mine and my fellow shopper to the right, that the cart had not struck either of our vehicles.

For months I have been complaining to my wife about the shopping cart. A great tool but when people neglect its powers it can turn into a nightmare for all. People do not understand how the simple act of returning your shopping cart to a proper return station can do make a big difference by:

1) Reducing Car Insurance Premiums

2) Preventing Injury

3) Reducing the costs of groceries

4) A bunch of other stuff

Don't believe me? Well over the next week I will give you some food for thought on how four of my theories are actually facts. And together we can help reduce costs and prevent injuries by bringing awareness to returning your shopping cart to its rightful home. All of this can be done as we march towards the first ever "National Shopping Cart Awareness Day" tentatively scheduled for Sunday, July 21st. 

An Office Divided

Anyone that knows anyone who works at Spalding Insurance Agency knows that we love our sports. More than anything we love our college sports. We have a whole onslaught of fans within the office ranging from Spartan fans to Wolverines.

You can pretty much draw a line down the middle of the office and each side would be equally divided.The two agency owners are divided between our two B1G Universities. Jon is an avid Spartan fan(Alabama too) while Bob Jr. sets is allegiance with the Wolverines.  Joining Jon as a Spartan fan are our CSR's ,Janean and Brenda, from our East Lansing office and Joyce from the Perry branch. While Bob Jr. is joined with CSR, Rosie, from our Perry office and myself (Ryan).

So here we are, in uncharted territories for most of the office. As we lead up to the Final Four, the Michigan fans will enjoy this week and live with anticipation for Saturday. Something our Spartan counterparts have had the luxury of doing a lot over the past decade.