New Semester + New Phablet = An Organized Start with Walmart Best Plans

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You may have noticed it’s been a little quiet here on the blog this last week.  That’s because it’s been the last week we’ve had our daughter home before we have to send her back to college after Christmas break.  I wanted to soak up as much time as we could together, because as much as I appreciate being able to communicate with her thanks to our Walmart Family Mobile Lowest Priced Unlimited Plans, there is nothing like talking face to face and getting a big hug from her.

Her first semester of college was a bit of a learning curve…for all of us.  It’s weird when your child leaves home and starts having a life of their own that you aren’t involved in on a daily basis.  It’s taken me these 3 1/2 months to become acclimated to having just my husband and I around the home and only getting texts and maybe a phone call or two from Amber.

She on the other hand, took to college like a duck to water (which is a great thing, it means we did our job well!).  She met a lot of good friends, has done extraordinarily well in her academics, she’s even gone out of her comfort zone to try new things.

She hasn’t though adjusted well to organizing her time in a way that is productive.  She found taking her laptop to class was cumbersome, didn’t want to have to keep track of five or six notebooks, doesn’t have a tablet, and is carrying around a third rate phone.  Therefore notes…well she didn’t take very good ones.  She also didn’t keep track of much in a calendar, had a few close calls with the snooze on her alarm and keeps forgetting to change the batteries in her calculator.

But those are all things young adults need to learn on their own, right?! Because no matter how. many. times. parents could say “I told you so,” sometimes the lesson is better learned when they’ve fallen down themselves and there is nobody there to kiss the scrapes.

She came home in December completely broken down because she was sure she had failed her computer programming final.  She wouldn’t even look at her marks until after Christmas because she was too scared to.  Ends up she got an 87% and a final grade of an A (actually she got A’s in all her courses, just a bit of a mom brag there).

We really want her to feel more prepared for the next semester, so we decided to get her a ZTE Zmax Phablet at Walmart, for our Walmart Family Mobile plan, to solve many of the problems she struggled with last year.  Not so large as her laptop or a tablet, but better than her current phone, it’s a one stop shop for most of what she needs.  Even after all the Christmas frivolities it didn’t break our budget since it is just $179.00 (on rollback from $199.88).

Since her phone is an additional line* to our primary one that we pay $34.88/month for Unlimited Talk, Text, & Web, it only costs us $29.88 an month and it comes with 5GB of 3G Data. This higher speed bucket allows her to do even more with the plan AND saves us money.. leaving us more to pay for her dorm room rent!

The Zte Zmax already came with a good calendar installed that she can schedule alerts for a week or so prior to when an assignment or paper is due.  So we sat for a bit perusing the Google Play Store to look for apps that would help her ‘live and learn’ this next semester.

We found a great alarm clock that will require her to answer a math question before she can hit snooze again or turn it off 🙂  <– I’m thinking at that point she’ll just stay awake!  We installed a scientific calculator so she doesn’t have to drag an additional item to classes (and doesn’t have to remember to change batteries).  And she told me the Wikipedia App is an indispensable resource for her to have at her fingertips…not too sure about that one, but it’s her phone right?!

Yes, I think that she’s going to start this semester off on the right foot.  I think she learned from her struggles last semester and will use the ZTE Zmax Phablet, with her Walmart Family Mobile Unlimited Talk Text and Data/Web plan, to strive for excellence and finish the year strong.

I slyly edited her contacts to add some encouragement for her to keep in touch 🙂  I mean it is called Walmart Family Mobile for a reason, right?!

What are some apps that you use to stay organized that you can suggest for Amber to download to her new ZTE Zmax Phablet on the Walmart Family Mobile Plan?

*Walmart Family Mobile phones require a SIM Card & Activation one time purchase of $25 per line.