Moms Guide to Technology

Remember when you gave the merchant money and they gave you a product or service?  Well, those days are dwindling … even faster since the new release of Paypal’s iphone app called “ Send Money”.   And even if you ‘old school’ won’t do it, you need to know enough to tell your kids about how it impacts budgeting and banking.

The beauty of apps, of the iphone, is that you have everything in the palm of your hand.  You don’t have to go home to check online.  You don’t have to pay $1.99 for directory assistance… and so on.

I already use my phone [not an iphone] to check my bank balances, it sends me balance alerts and updates and reminders to pay bills.  Smart phones are handy.

And there’s money in that convenience …

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My mom always said, “Cheaters never prosper”.  A new iphone app is certainly trying to make it easier for the cheaters.

It’s called Tigertext and the app was released last week and is fast becoming a hot topic.  Here’s how it works:

The tigertexter downloads the app to their iphone [coming soon to blackberry & droid] and when sending a message, they set a time limit, between one minute and 5 days, on the message.  The person receiving the message has to download the app as well and just like Mission Impossible, that message self-destructs when the time runs out.  There is no trail because it never lives on your phone.  The message is on the servers of Tigertext.  Sneaky!  But not foolproof.

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You won’t hear your kids say they’re keeping their current phone, but most of my friends do.  Oh, parents will talk about the iPhone; but in the end, there are more important things that buying the fishing app and increasing the dreaded cell bill.

We’re living our adult lives post-telephone deregulation.  That means we got in the habit of a phone where we pay one fee for unlimited local calling.  As we hit our professional stride, the phone/cable companies offered us unlimited long-distance calling from our home phones.   We like to know what things are going to cost us before we use them.  Cell service doesn’t work that way.  The sales people will walk you through the ‘plans’.  But cell phone charges are NOT fixed, so don’t get caught in that false sense of security.

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