If you’re searching for a budgeting app for Canadians that actually supports life in Canada, you’re not alone!
Most popular budgeting apps are built for the American market, leaving Canadians with broken bank connections, awkward currency conversions, and no simple way to track RRSP or TFSA contributions.
But Canadians have found a better option. As Redditor u/RedCode15 put it best: “Lunch Money. Canadian app for Canadians.”
Here are some ways Lunch Money makes it so easy for Canadians to manage their money, from planning their next trip to smooth connections with Canadian banks and tracking Canadian-specific payments like the Canada Child Benefit.
Your price will never change (and you’ll pay in Canadian dollars)
Unlike many subscription-based apps that quietly raise prices over time, Lunch Money believes in transparency. Once you sign up, your price is locked in for good.
That means no surprise increases, no confusing price tiers, and no pressure to “upgrade” just to access basic features.
And since you pay in Canadian dollars, you can wave goodbye to pesky foreign exchange fees. With Lunch Money, the price you see is what you pay.
Even your receipts are in CAD, making it easier to track your expenses and budget without worrying about conversion rates.
As a customer-first company, we want to help you reach your financial goals. That means providing solutions that address your needs while giving you the best possible experience.
Manage your budget no matter where you are in the world
If you love to travel, chances are you’ve faced the challenge of constantly juggling currencies and exchange rates. Whether you’re snowbirding in Florida or backpacking through Europe, keeping your budget on track and accurate across multiple currencies can be a pain.
Lunch Money lets you set CAD as your base currency while tracking other currencies, such as EUR and USD. Foreign transactions automatically convert to CAD, so your totals always make sense.
Even when you’re not travelling, you may deal with foreign currencies when online shopping or investing across borders. With Lunch Money, those transactions won’t throw off your budget.
Everything stays organized and accurate, no matter where your money goes.
Lunch Money is built by Canadians
Did you know that Lunch Money was founded by a Canadian?
Jen, the founder, engineer, and designer, created the app while living in Japan. What began as a simple spreadsheet she used to track her own spending quickly grew into a full-fledged budgeting tool.
As a frequent traveler herself, Jen wanted a budgeting app that would fit her life best, and could handle multiple currencies, unlimited budget categories, and custom budgeting periods.
Jen has connected personally with the Canadian user community through meetups held in Vancouver and Toronto, where she met users in real life, gathered feedback, and shared a preview of upcoming Lunch Money’s features.
Lunch Money connects with the top Canadian banks
One of Canadians’ biggest frustrations with American-based budgeting apps is that they don’t connect properly with Canadian banks.
Canadian bank connections are particularly prone to these challenges today, as many of Canada’s major banks, including RBC, TD, Scotiabank, CIBC, Tangerine and others, are still operating on older authentication methods while awaiting final open banking and OAuth regulatory guidance.
Lunch Money was intentionally built to accommodate this by offering a dedicated support team to actively escalate sync issues and keep users informed, in addition to a reliable CSV and PDF importer that allows you to effortlessly upload transactions and keep your budget clean and accurate.
Also, our robust Developer API enables expanded connectivity through solutions like Lunch Flow, a third-party solution built by a Lunch Money user, that let’s you connect to even more institutions for automatic transaction syncing (via its MX integration), including:
- Canada Life
- Questrade
- Flinks
- MBNA
- Canadian Tire Bank
- Koho
- Neo Financial
- Rogers Bank
- Manulife
- And many more! Check out the whole list here.
Lunch Money supports Canadian-built third-party solutions
In addition to bank syncing, several Canadian developers have created their own Lunch Money integrations and made them available to the community.
For example, do you have a Wealthsimple account to manage your investments? Canadian-born developer Colby Hubscher created Lunchsimple, a dedicated integration that lets you import your Wealthsimple transactions directly into Lunch Money.
With Lunchsimple, you can see your investments alongside your day-to-day spending and savings goals. That way, you can make more informed financial decisions without switching between platforms.
Another solution, Lunch Money Pal, was a popular mobile companion app developed by Wilson, who lives in Toronto. In fact, we loved Wilson’s creation so much that we acquired it as our official Lunch Money companion app, and Wilson has joined our team as an engineer!
Last, but certainly not least, is Rodrigo, another Canadian Lunch Money user and Android software engineer, who built a Lunch Money Android companion. You can check out Rodrigo’s Lunch Money story here!
Flexible to track Canadian programs
Keeping track of registered accounts and government benefits can be tricky. Lunch Money makes it easy to track programs and accounts, such as:
- Registered Retirement Savings Plan (RRSP) contributions to keep tabs on your retirement savings.
- Tax-Free Savings Account (TFSA) deposits to ensure you don’t exceed your annual limit.
- Registered Education Savings Plan (RESP) savings for your children’s education.
- Goods and Services/Harmonized Sales Tax (GST/HST) credits.
- Employment Insurance (EI) benefits.
- Canada Child Benefit (CBB) payments.
There are two easy ways to do this:
- Create dedicated expense categories for each type of account or benefit, like “RRSP Contributions” or “Canada Child Benefit.”
- Add tags to transactions so you can group them under your main categories while still tracking them for tax or reporting purposes.
When it’s time to prepare your taxes, you can export your data for the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA), giving you a clean, detailed report of your financial activity for the year.
The personal finance app for Canadians
At the end of the day, Lunch Money isn’t just another budgeting tool; it’s a personal finance app for Canadians, built by Canadians who understand what features matter most when it comes to managing money.
It connects to major Canadian banks, supports multiple currencies, and helps you stay on top of essential accounts and benefits, like your RRSP and TFSA. With everything organized in one place, you can easily track your spending, find more ways to save, and build financial habits that last.
If you’re ready to take control of your money, start your 30-day free trial today. After that, you can rest easy with the knowledge that your price will never change!
