Confession. We didn’t actually budget for the holidays this past year 😬. Should we have? Maybe. But after nearly a decade of actively tracking our finances, we’ve developed pretty solid instincts about our spending. Having ample savings also plays a huge role in our lack of a holiday budget.

February was a month of logistical headaches. We dealt with fraudulent charges on our main credit card early in the month. Thankfully it was resolved quickly, but the replacement card got caught in the major winter storm that hit in late January/early February, so it arrived weeks late (with the second replacement card I had to order as a replacement for the replacement 🙃).

In my spreadsheet budgeting days, I always wanted to add our food spending up at the end of the year, but it required more effort than I wanted to put in (very doable, just never happened). Using Monarch has made this much easier, a couple clicks and I had exactly what I needed.

We spent about $200 more than we intended to in our Food & Dining Out budget category in January. A big winter storm hit at the end of the month and we stocked up on non-perishable food and water in case our power went out or our pipes froze.