YNAB Alternative for Multiple Currencies

YNAB is a great budgeting method wrapped in an app built for one currency. If you earn in dollars, rent in euros and buy groceries in a third currency, you hit the limit quickly: a YNAB budget has exactly one currency. This guide explains what that means in practice, the workarounds people use, and what to look for in a YNAB alternative for multiple currencies — without giving up the habits that made YNAB work for you.

Why YNAB struggles with several currencies

In YNAB every budget has a single currency, and every account in that budget is assumed to be in it. There's no per-account currency and no automatic conversion. YNAB's own suggestion for multi-currency life is a separate budget per currency.

That works for an occasional trip. It breaks down when your money lives in several currencies all the time:

• No single picture. Two or three budgets never add up into one net worth or one monthly spending figure.
• Categories split in two. "Groceries" in the dollar budget and "Groceries" in the euro budget are different categories with different limits.
• Exchanges are awkward. Moving money from the dollar account to the euro account is an outflow in one budget and an inflow in another, and the exchange rate lives nowhere.

The usual workarounds

• Convert by hand. Enter every foreign expense in your budget currency at "today's rate". It's tedious, the rate is never quite right, and balances drift from your bank within weeks.
• Third-party converters. Some tools convert foreign transactions through YNAB's API. Useful if you mostly live in one currency and travel; fragile as your main system.
• Treat foreign accounts as tracking accounts. You see them, but they don't take part in the budget — which defeats the point.

If you've been doing one of these for months, that's the sign to switch to a tool that does multiple currencies natively.

What a YNAB alternative should keep

YNAB's strength is the method, not the currency handling. A good replacement keeps the parts that matter:

1. Categories with monthly limits — the core of "give every dollar a job".
2. Planned bills — rent, subscriptions and loans you know are coming.
3. A weekly check-in — comparing balances with your banks and adjusting.

What it should add

1. A currency per account. Cards, cash and savings each keep their own currency and their exact balance.
2. One main currency for totals. Reports, net worth and budgets are converted at a current exchange rate.
3. Exchanges as transfers with two amounts. 500 USD out, 460 EUR in — no fake expense, and the fee is visible in the difference.
4. Limits across all accounts. A grocery limit counts spending from the dollar card and the lari cash alike.

Our guide to tracking expenses in multiple currencies explains these rules in detail, and the multi-currency budget app comparison checks YNAB, Spendee, Wallet and Toshl against them. Spendee, for example, gives each wallet its own currency, but its free plan has a single wallet.

A month in practice

Here's what one month looks like for someone paid in dollars and living in Tbilisi. Salary of 3,000 USD lands on the dollar account. On the 1st, 1,200 USD is converted to lari — recorded as a transfer: 1,200 USD out, 3,240 GEL in. Rent, groceries and transport are paid from the lari card; a few subscriptions and a flight are paid from the dollar card; cash comes out of an ATM as another transfer.

At the end of the month the picture is complete. The "Groceries" limit shows spending from both cards in dollars. Net worth adds up the dollar account, the lari card and the cash. The conversion never appears as an expense, and the bank's spread is visible in the rate you actually got. In YNAB the same month would have needed two budgets or a day of manual conversion.

Moving from YNAB without losing the method

1. Export your YNAB data to CSV from the web app and keep it as an archive.
2. List where your money actually lives — every card, account and cash pocket, with its currency.
3. Create one account per place in the new app and enter today's balances.
4. Recreate your categories and monthly targets, now in your main currency.
5. Add your planned bills as reminders.
6. Keep the weekly check-in. Same habit, now across currencies.

Buddzy as a YNAB alternative

Buddzy is a web app we built for exactly this case:

• every account has its own currency; totals, reports and budgets are in your main currency at daily exchange rates;
• a transfer between currencies takes two amounts, so exchanges never count as spending;
• monthly limits per category count spending from all accounts;
• payment reminders cover rent, subscriptions and loans;
• a shared family budget sits next to your personal one.

What it doesn't do: Buddzy has no bank sync and no YNAB import — you add transactions yourself, which works with any bank in any country. It isn't a strict zero-based budget either: limits are set per category rather than assigning every unit of income.

The Free plan includes up to 5 accounts and 200 transactions a month; category budgets come with Basic and the family budget with Premium — see pricing.

The bottom line

If you live in one currency, YNAB is hard to beat. If your salary, rent and savings are in different currencies, you need an app where each account keeps its own currency and everything still adds up to one total. Keep the YNAB habits — categories, planned bills, the weekly check — and move them to a tool that speaks your currencies. If you've just moved abroad, our guide to budgeting after relocation covers the first month.