We are the MonoTape team. Before a trip abroad, the question is always the same: is that price expensive or not? A hotel listed in euros, a tour priced in pesos, a dinner in yen — none of it means anything until you picture it in dollars. People convert one price, forget it, convert the next, and never get a feel for the whole trip. In this article we show how entering the rate yourself and labeling each price lets you line up foreign costs in dollars on a single tape.
To be clear up front: MonoTape does not pull live exchange rates. You type in the rate you want to use — yesterday's rate, a round number, or whatever your bank quoted — and that is by design. For trip planning you want a steady rate you chose, not a number that moves while you are doing the math.
One-off conversions never add up to a picture
Converting a single price is easy: multiply the foreign amount by your rate. The trouble is you do it one price at a time and a plain calculator keeps none of them. Multiply 120 * 1.08 for a hotel in euros and you get about $130 — then you convert the tour, and the hotel figure is already gone. You never see the trip's prices side by side, so you cannot tell where the money is really going.
And if the rate you assumed turns out to be off, every conversion you did is wrong, with no way to fix them but to redo each one. The calculator remembers neither the rate nor the prices.
Put your rate on a line, convert each price against it
In MonoTape you set your chosen rate on its own labeled line, then write each conversion as the foreign price times that rate. Every candidate purchase becomes a dollar figure you can compare at a glance.
Now the trip's prices sit in dollars, one under the next, with a running total. You can see what a day actually costs back home and decide what is worth it — all from a rate you chose and can see, not one hidden inside an app.
Change the rate once, everything reconverts
Rates drift, and you might want to check the trip against a worse rate to be safe. Because every conversion references the same rate line, you edit that one number and the whole list reconverts on its own. Bump the rate from 1.08 to 1.12 and the hotel, the tour, the dinner, and the day total all update at once — no redoing each price.
Getting a feel for foreign prices is a tool problem, not a math problem. Set your own rate on a line, convert each price against it, and edit the rate once to reconvert everything. You head into the trip knowing roughly what things cost — on a rate you picked yourself.
MonoTape
A calculator notepad where you label your math and one edit recalculates everything. Currency math, trip budgets, split bills — whatever you calculate stays on the tape. Free to use.
Learn more about MonoTapeFrequently asked questions
Does MonoTape fetch the live exchange rate?
No. You enter the rate yourself, which is ideal for rough trip planning — you pick a steady rate you trust and it stays put while you do the math, instead of shifting under you.
How do I convert several prices at once?
Put your rate on its own labeled line and write each price as the foreign amount times that rate. They line up in dollars on the tape, and you can sum them into a day or trip total.
What if I want to check against a different rate?
Edit the single rate line and every conversion that references it reconverts automatically. You can test a safety margin without redoing any individual price.
Is it free?
Yes. Labeled calculations, references, auto-recalculation, and tape-style history — every feature mentioned here is free. It works on both iPhone and Android, and your data stays on your device.