r/YNABAlternatives

Share your budgets today midnight - midnight eastern time! You can share them below or make your own post. Stick around in the comments to respond to questions, share screenshots, tell us why you made it, and what your favorite parts are!

Hi everyone,

I've been building a personal finance web app in my free time.

The biggest goal wasn't adding AI or fancy charts.

Instead, I wanted users to fully own their data.

Features:

• Installable PWA

• Data stays on your device

• Optional backup directly to your Google Drive

• No server stores your financial data

I'd love honest feedback from early users.

Landing page:

https://vifinance-landing.web.app

App:
https://finance2-6ebb5.web.app

Thank you!

https://preview.redd.it/fs2hu1jxayah1.png?width=1179&format=png&auto=webp&s=b5c3aea9a0043398967195d1af5b867ee9c38841

https://preview.redd.it/mrkfispzayah1.png?width=1179&format=png&auto=webp&s=82db61c2503447bf79dcc25e819d088a91853af5

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ZenExpenses update: Budgets + Split Transactions are here 🎉

Shipped two big features for ZenExpenses this weekend:

1. Budgets

Set budgets per category and track them individually. Categories now support sub-categories too, and you're not locked into presets - add whatever categories/sub-categories fit your needs.

https://preview.redd.it/ghtqfzm31cbh1.png?width=857&format=png&auto=webp&s=0a0ca078c56e4cde5167e9d302e5e8a13a03ae3c

2. Split Transactions.

One transaction, multiple categories. That $290 Costco spend isn't just "Groceries" anymore. You can split it however it actually breaks down (e.g., $200 Groceries / $90 Electronics), see screenshot below.

https://preview.redd.it/1udzy82z1cbh1.png?width=884&format=png&auto=webp&s=03f2d6e36f76ab2a6b0e67bf70f91720fba41846

I would love to get feedback. Try https://zenexpenses.com free for 7 days, no card required.

I keep seeing people say they just paste their bank statements into ChatGPT or Claude to see where their money went. I have tried it too and it is genuinely decent for a one off, but a week later it has forgotten everything and I am back to copy pasting the same stuff.

Just wondering how people are doing this day to day?

Are you pasting statements in every week, or have you found a way to keep the context so you are not repeating yourself every time?

For the people who refuse to connect a budgeting app to their bank, does letting an AI see your transactions feel any different, or is it the same trust problem?

And if you tried an AI finance tool and dropped it, what made you quit?

Not looking for a just use a spreadsheet answer, I already do that. I am trying to figure out if the AI part actually adds anything or if it is just hype.

I’ve always thought I was just terrible at keeping a budget.

Yesterday kind of proved it.

I grabbed a coffee on my way to work and wanted to log it right away. The problem was, one hand was holding my coffee and the other was holding my phone. Trying to type everything with one thumb while walking was so annoying that I told myself,

“I’ll just log it when I get to the office.”

Of course… I completely forgot.

Later that night, I was lying in bed and suddenly remembered the coffee. I opened my budgeting app, but then realized I couldn’t even remember how much it cost. So I opened my banking app to check.
That’s when I noticed a bunch of other transactions I had never logged.

At that point I just felt overwhelmed. Instead of catching up, I closed both apps and went to sleep.

I feel like this happens to me all the time. It’s never one missed expense. One missed expense turns into several, then catching up feels like work, and eventually I don’t even want to open the app anymore.

Please tell me I’m not the only one who does this.

Right now I’m trying to use Routine Wallet because they have a free trial for the Pro version, and I actually like the voice input. Being able to just say something like “Coffee, six dollars” instead of typing everything makes me much more likely to log expenses while I’m actually spending money.

I’m considering paying for it once the trial ends, but before I do, I’d like to compare it with a few other budgeting apps.

What budgeting app are you using that you’ve actually been able to stick with?

I’d love recommendations, especially if it makes logging expenses quick and frictionless.

My partner and I keep separate accounts, but share a lot of expenses. The way I've done this in YNAB is to set up an unlinked account that is just the expenses that I owe my partner (e.g. my portion of the utility bill, etc). Conversely, when my partner owes me money, I'll split a given transaction to send their portion of the cost to a category called "[Partner] Owes Me". Almost all my transactions are on a credit card, so in YNAB this means the "[Partner] Owes Me" category is apparently in overdraft most of the month, but if I make a purchase using my checking or debit card, then the category goes into red and starts to throw off other parts of my budget. However, at no point am I actually in the negative on an account in real life. At the end of the month, we find the difference between these two balances, and then whomever owes more pays the other that difference to fully zero it out.

It's not a bad system, but I wonder if there's a better way to do this in some other apps. My partner uses Monarch, but I'm not as big of a fan of the interface, and the way they need to split these shared transactions looks clumsy. I'm most interested in Actual Budget and Zerosum, though from looking at the comparison spreadsheet, Liquid Budget seems like it might also meet my needs. Between those three, which one do folks find works best for a situation like this? I'm going to jump from YNAB sooner or later anyway, and I'd like to make sure this component of my budgeting process is functional.

Since YNAB crapped on half their marketing team and took away everything that made the brand special, someone really should capitalise on nabbing those voices for a competitor.

Hello all!

Like many of you guys, I've been thinking of transitioning from YNAB to an alternative.

I've come across ZeroSum and Beyond Budget both. But before starting it, I am looking for some recommendations from the public here on how's you'll experience with either of them.

Looking for a productive discussion here! 🙌

Hey Devs,

We're aware of the automod going rogue the last couple weeks on the Sundays posts removing the Dev posts. I've reset the automod so we're hoping next week it will work as it's supposed to. If your post gets deleted, please message the sub and we'll get it back up. Sorry for the giant pain in the ass this has been!

Edit to add:

I have the developer of the automation we're using for Sundays looped in and he's going to check things out on his end to get it fixed. In the meantime, I added a note in the removal and the notification you get when selecting a dev flair reminding you we're having issues and to just message the sub if anything gets removed. Please message the subreddit itself, not me directly. For whatever reason, my DMs don't always notify me. If you don't get a response within a few hours, send it again please and thank you.

I'm trying to figure out the best way to organize my finances.

My ideal system would work something like this: It always knows my current checking account balance.

- It automatically accounts for all of my upcoming monthly expenses (rent, utilities, insurance, etc.).

• It lets me set savings goals (house down payment, vacations, emergency fund, new car, etc.).
• It tells me how much money is actually safe to spend after all of those obligations are accounted for.
• If I don't spend everything this month, I'd like the option to roll that money into next month's expenses or keep funding future months until I'm a month ahead.

I also use my credit card for almost everything, but I pay it off 4–5 times a month, so I'm not carrying debt. I'd want the system to recognize those purchases as money that's already spoken for, even if the payment hasn't happened yet.

I'm not necessarily looking for a traditional "budget" where I'm micromanaging every dollar. I'm looking more for a financial autopilot that answers one question:

"How much can I safely spend today without affecting my future bills or savings goals?"

How important for you to have a desktop version in YNAB alternative?

Judging by myself, I use YNAB on my laptop only when it's reconciliation time. Otherwise mobile is more than enough.

Hi everyone,

Earlier this year I started traveling and working as a digital nomad, and I ran into one of the most commonly discussed limitations of YNAB: managing money across multiple currencies.

I tried to make it work, and I also downloaded a bunch of other budgeting apps. None of them really had the combination of multi-currency support, simplicity, and envelope budgeting that I was looking for.

So I decided to build Nomad Budget.

It’s a simple, manual-entry, envelope-style budgeting app built around multi-currency from the start. Instead of splitting everything across separate budgets, you can manage all your money in one place while keeping currencies organized and easy to understand.

I’ve been using it for the last few months, and it’s completely replaced YNAB for me.

It’s still early, and I’m actively shaping it based on user feedback. So if you’re looking for a YNAB alternative with multi-currency support, I’d genuinely love to hear what you think and what you’d like to see next.

https://preview.redd.it/7ct1a8vlyz9h1.png?width=1477&format=png&auto=webp&s=51a4baa30bdf6b47798607f299dd26629ebf5b7a

Hey all, first time really putting this out there, aside from a comment last week.

I've been building a zero based budgeting app called ReadyCents, and I've finally hit a point where I don't want to keep it to myself anymore. I've been heads down on this for a good while now.

The reason I started it is pretty simple. I've been self employed for about 3 years, and between YNAB's price creeping up and me juggling a bunch of separate tools for spending, savings, and taxes, though none of it really fit how I actually live. So I just started building the thing I wished existed.

The part I'm most proud of is that tax tracking is built right in. If you're self employed, or you work a W2 and pick up side income, it helps you set money aside as you earn instead of scrambling every April or every quarter. It's built around real paycheck rhythms too, so whether you get paid monthly, biweekly, or it's all over the place like mine, it works.

Here's some of what it does:

Taxes baked in. You set a percentage to hold back (say 25%), tag your deductible expenses, and it shows your estimated taxable income plus a quarterly view as the year goes. You can export a CSV at the end of the year. (To be clear, it helps you set aside and estimate. It's not doing your filing or telling you your final tax bill.)

Real zero based budgeting. Every dollar gets a job. You can budget at the category group level and also break things into subcategories, so you can fund a whole group and then split it across categories after a transaction actually lands. You can even set a credit card up as a checking account and it still behaves like a credit card on the budget side.

Rollover that actually makes sense. If you overspend a category/s, that overspending rolls forward too, so nothing just quietly disappears. Even the notes you write for a month can carry over to the next one.

A calendar so you can see what's landing and when, like bills, paychecks, and your projected cash flow. You can also add a transaction right from any day.

Reports for spending by category, income vs expenses, and net worth over time.

A debt payoff coach that tracks your debt and tells you the next best move in plain English instead of just showing you a scary number.

A few things I honestly haven't seen other budgeting apps talk about:

Color vision support. On top of light and dark themes, accent colors, and coloring your category groups, there are actual color blindness palettes (deuteranopia, protanopia, tritanopia, achromatopsia) so the green, amber, and red status colors aren't useless to you.

A what if mode. You can stress test the next 6 months and drop in a possible expense, like a new car payment, to see how it would hit you, all without touching your real budget, or creating a new budget, and if you think it makes sense you can add the new category/s to your actual budget in just a click.

You can hide your debt. If you're paying it down and you don't want that number staring at you every time you open the app, you can just hide it from the sidebar.

Made with sharing your screen in mind. If you make videos or you're doing a demo, you can hide your email (and your debt numbers) so you can show the app without showing your whole life.

Easy to come over from YNAB. You can import your YNAB data and then connect your accounts with SimpleFin, Plaid, or both, whatever you prefer.

One login, a few budgets. Keep a personal budget, a shared household one, and a business one, all separate. And if you'd rather host it yourself and keep your data fully in your hands, you can do that too.

Where it's at right now: still in development and heading toward a beta with real people. It's desktop and iPad first at the moment, and I've got iOS and Android apps in the works. No website yet, that'll go up once I finish some bugs, based on some family feedback.

The best part, you get a 60 day free trial! 30 to 45 days honestly isn't enough to test out something that will help you with your money. Which is why you get 60 days to try it out.

On pricing, I want to be upfront, and I really do want your input. I'm building this to be affordable and not nickel and dime anyone later. Here's roughly where my head is at:

• Manual budgeting is free, full stop. You get the budgeting and the tax tracking without paying a cent. You only pay if you want your transactions to flow in automatically from your bank, since that part actually costs me to run.
• Bring your own bank connection with SimpleFin: around $10 a month, or $60 a year. It can be cheaper because SimpleFin barely costs me anything when you bring your own connection.
• Managed bank sync with Plaid, where I handle the connection for you: around $15 a month, or $84 a year.
• Self hosting: a one time $49, then it's yours, on your own server with your own keys.

A few honest questions:

1. Does that feel fair, or off?
2. What would you pay for sync tiers?
3. What's the price where you'd just say no?
4. What would you like to be customizable ?

If this sounds like something you've been wanting, leave a comment and tell me what matters most to you. I'm keeping a list of folks who want first crack at the beta.

https://preview.redd.it/vgwzb5l2yz9h1.png?width=1661&format=png&auto=webp&s=e7794456829b6a64c143c94751735e749153faa6