Budget vs Actuals

A budget vs actuals review puts each planned category next to what you spent. The gap is the variance: actual minus planned. A gap is not yet a new plan. You either move money from another category and write the move down, or you change the plan because the miss will repeat. Leaving both lines as they were means the plan and the month are describing two different households.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's spending tips, February 2017, say to compare actual spending with the budget, monthly or more often, and to adjust the budget if it is regularly out of line. The same bureau's My New Money Goal worksheet says that at the end of the month you list what you spent and compare those real-life numbers with your projections. You may not hit every target the first month. Make a few tweaks and try again. A June 5, 2019 CFPB post says to update the budget if employment or spending habits change. Writing the plan, before this comparison, is on how to make a budget.

Checked October 29, 2026. The prices in the Monarch section were read from the vendor pages linked at the end. A fact a page does not state is marked Not documented.

The comparison

The order below is the review. It starts from a plan you already wrote. This page does not rebuild the income pass, the fixed bills, or the method you picked.

1. Keep the plan you are testing. The planned column is the number you assigned before the spending, or the number you are willing to treat as the assignment. A six-month average you never edited is history. It can be the starting guess. It is a plan only after you keep it. The CFPB worksheet puts last month's actual spending in one column and this month's targets in the next. The difference between those two columns is how you set the target. The end of the month is a second comparison: what you spent against that target.
2. Write the actual next to the plan, one category at a time. Rent is one line. Groceries are another. A total that matches, with the categories swapped, is not a pass. The February 2017 tips say to compare actual spending with the budget. They do not say the bank balance is the budget.
3. Subtract. On this page the gap is actual minus planned. Spent more than the plan, and the line is over. Spent less, and the line is under. For a savings line, under means you set aside less than you planned. It is not a discount. Add the gaps. If they sum to $0, the month balanced and the categories did not.
4. Separate a move from a new plan. A move takes the overage from a category that came in under, and both numbers change on purpose. The month's total stays the same. A new plan changes a number you will use again, because the miss was not a one-time trade.

A worked example

Example household only. These are round numbers chosen so the arithmetic is easy to check. They are not a budget, a target for your rent, or a recommendation. Take-home pay planned for the month, and the pay that arrived, is $3,600. Income matched. The six lines below are the plan and the actual.

$1,500 plus $500 plus $200 plus $180 plus $100 plus $1,120 is $3,600. $1,500 plus $620 plus $80 plus $180 plus $160 plus $1,060 is $3,600. $620 minus $500 is $120. $200 minus $80 is $120. $160 minus $100 is $60. $1,120 minus $1,060 is $60. $120 over, minus $120 under, plus $60 over, minus $60 under, is $0. Rent and getting around do not need a new number.

The honest move is the food trade. Groceries are over by the same $120 that eating out is under. If you decide the grocery trips used the eating-out money, move $120. Eating out's plan goes from $200 to $80. Groceries go from $500 to $620. $200 minus $120 is $80. $500 plus $120 is $620. Both lines now match what you spent. The other four lines do not change. The total plan is still $3,600. That is a within-month fix. It is not a decision that groceries should be $620 from now on.

The open item is household supplies and savings. Household supplies are $60 over. Savings are $60 under. The extra supplies came out of the transfer. One month of that is a note. The CFPB worksheet says you may not hit every target the first month. Copy $160 into next month's household plan, and cut savings to $1,060, only if that $60 gap is what the category does, not what it did once. Raising household and leaving savings at $1,120, without a higher income, makes the next plan $3,660. $3,600 plus $60 is $3,660.

Do not raise the over line and leave the under line alone. Groceries at $620, with eating out still at $200, adds $120 to a plan that already used the whole $3,600. $3,600 plus $120 is $3,720. The plan is then $120 larger than the pay that arrived. Naming every dollar until the assignments equal income is zero-based budgeting. This page uses that check. It does not repeat the method.

When to adjust the plan

Adjust when the line is regularly out of line. The February 2017 CFPB tips say to make adjustments to the budget if it is regularly out of line. One grocery month that was covered by eating out is not that test. The same category over again, by about the same amount, with no category you are willing to lower, is the test. The plan is the thing that is wrong. Raise the line and lower another one you will actually keep, or the next month will fail in the same place.

A first miss is a tweak, not a rewrite. The CFPB worksheet says no one can predict the future, that you may not hit every target the first month, and that you make a few tweaks and try again. Changing all six lines to equal this month's actuals makes the plan a diary of one month. Next month then has nothing to miss.

Adjust when the job changed. The June 5, 2019 CFPB post says to update the budget if you have a change in employment or in spending habits. A paycheck that arrives at $3,200, against a plan built on $3,600, is $400 the categories cannot have. $3,600 minus $3,200 is $400. Cut $400 of assignments before you argue about groceries. A new insurance bill that will come every month is a new planned line. The amount you can still spend before the next paycheck, once the bills are dated, is on how to calculate safe to spend.

Do not adjust a one-time bill into the monthly number. If getting around had been $580 because of a $400 repair, $180 plus $400 is $580. The table above is not that month. Getting around matched at $180. A repair you can name is a sinking fund: the cost divided by the months until you pay it, set aside before the bill. Putting $580 into next month's getting-around plan taxes every ordinary month for a bill that already happened. That division is on sinking funds.

A line that is regularly under is the same test in the other direction. Eating out at $80 against a $200 plan, every month, with the $120 spent somewhere you did not name, means the $200 plan is not the plan. Lower it and assign the $120. The CFPB worksheet asks which areas were higher than you thought, and what changes you want to make. A cap you fill before you spend, and stop when it is empty, is envelope budgeting. Stuffing the cash at the start of the month, and not borrowing from another envelope, is cash stuffing. Moving a set amount of the savings line before the rest is available is pay yourself first. In this example the savings shortfall is $60. The question is whether $1,060 left on payday, or whether the $1,120 never moved.

Three percentages are a different comparison. Needs, wants, and savings as shares of take-home pay are the 50/30/20 budget rule. This page is one gap per category. Half of $3,600 is $1,800. Rent alone is $1,500. The percentage test and the category gap answer different questions.

Common failure modes

The total matched, so the month passed. Both columns add to $3,600. Groceries and household supplies still missed. A review that stops at the total will raise nothing and will miss again.

The move is not written down. Spending the extra $120 of groceries and leaving eating out at $200 means both lines are wrong. The account can still end at the same balance. The plan cannot tell you which category did it.

One month becomes the new plan. Household supplies at $160 was this month. Copying it forward, and also copying the $620 of groceries, and also keeping the $200 of eating out, is how the next plan asks for pay you do not have.

The bank balance is the review. The example account can show $3,600 after payday and still have $1,500 of that assigned to rent. A purchase that looks at the balance is not a category gap. It is spending a line you already named.

A blank category is treated as $0 spent. Monarch's budget article, updated October 22, 2026, says you can set a category to $0, which hides it at the bottom of the group. Opening it still shows what was spent. The same article says you can exclude a category from the budget. Those transactions still appear in cash flow and spending totals. An excluded line that is missing from the review is not a line that cost $0.

The plan was never chosen. The same article says the first visit fills each category with a monthly average of the last six months. You can edit the number. If you do not, the gap is you versus your own recent average. That is a useful comparison. It is not a comparison with a target you set. The CFPB worksheet's month 2 column is the target you enter.

Monarch Money

Monarch Money is the default app if you want planned, actual, and what is left on one budget, with accounts connected. Pen and paper holds the same six lines. So does a spreadsheet. The arithmetic above does not require an app. Monarch is the product in this comparison that shows the three numbers on the budget.

The budget article, updated October 22, 2026, offers two types. Category budgeting assigns every expense category an amount and tracks spending at the category level. Flex budgeting is the default: one flexible spending number, instead of a plan for every category. You can still follow an envelope or zero-based style if it is based on cash flow, where income equals expenses plus savings. A mode named budget vs actuals: Not documented. The web budget page shows three columns: Planned, Actual, and Remaining. Mobile starts with two: the planned amount and the remaining amount. You can switch the last column between Remaining and Actual by long-pressing any of the numbers, or by pressing the column header.

Remaining runs the other direction from the gap on this page. The article's overspent category shows a red remaining amount, like -$65. That figure is planned minus actual. In the example, groceries at $500 planned and $620 actual would show -$120 remaining before any move. $500 minus $620 is -$120. The gap on this page for that line is $120 over. Same dollars. Opposite sign.

If you overspend, you can move money from another category. The total budget for the month stays the same. On the Budget page, the remaining amount is the red number. You choose the category to move money from and enter the amount. You can move money to or from any category whose amount is shown in a red or green pill. In flex budgeting, that move is to or from the flexible spending bucket as a whole, not between the categories inside it. The food trade in the example, $120 from eating out to groceries, is a category-budget move. Inside a flex bucket, Monarch does not do that category-to-category move. The article also says that if a category keeps going over, check that its transactions are categorized correctly before you treat the gap as real.

Rollovers are a third outcome, and they are not a new planned amount. The rollover article, updated August 14, 2026, lets an expense category carry its remaining amount into the next month. Rollovers cannot be applied to income categories. The formula on that page is last month's rollover, plus this month's planned amount, minus this month's actual, equals the remaining rollover for next month. Their illustration: last month was $25 over, so the rollover is -$25, the plan is $100, and the actual is $50. -$25 plus $100 minus $50 is $25 left to roll. The planned amount in that illustration is still $100. A full month of that carry, with the planned amount left unchanged, is the rolling budget guide.

Applied to this example, household supplies had no prior rollover, a $100 plan, and $160 actual. $0 plus $100 minus $160 is -$60. If rollover is on, next month starts $60 short, and the planned amount is still $100 unless you edit it. Turning rollover on does not raise the plan to $160. The article says rollovers should stay on for non-monthly expenses, and that any expense category can be a rollover, in the fixed, non-monthly, or flex bucket. For the flex bucket, a category rollover changes that category's remaining amount and does not change the overall flex bucket, unless you also turn rollover on for the bucket. When the gas-and-electric example sets the monthly amount, the article says to select Apply to all future months. The budget article describes editing the amount in the text box and does not repeat that control. Whether every edit offers it: Not documented on the budget article.

The monthly progress report, updated May 7, 2026, is a mobile dashboard card. One of its pages is Plan progress, and the detailed view is Actual vs Planned. That is the same comparison as this guide, inside the app, for a month you already tracked. It is not a separate planning method.

Transfer and Credit Card Payment categories are excluded from budgets and cash flow. A transfer to your own savings, filed that way, will not show in the budget. The savings line in the example has to be a category the budget counts, or the $60 shortfall never appears. The first setup step in the article is connecting accounts and categorizing transactions, including income. A budget built on income that is filed as a transfer will not match the $3,600.

Price, read on monarch.com/pricing on October 29, 2026. There is no free plan. The pricing help, updated March 3, 2026, says Monarch only offers paid subscriptions, in US dollars, plus tax where it applies. Core is $14.99 a month, or $8.33 a month when billed $99.99 a year. Plus is $16.67 a month, billed $199.99 a year. Both plan cards say a free 7-day trial, then that price, and that a payment method is required. Cancel in settings before the trial ends. A month-to-month Plus price was not on the page. Not documented. Trial length, the annual price, and discounts are on Monarch Money pricing.

Monarch also publishes an MCP connector, updated October 22, 2026, for Core and Plus. Read-only is the default. Write access is separate, and you allow it. That connector is a way to ask about categories and amounts you already have. It is not the review, and it is not a free plan.

Where FYN fits

FYN is our product, and it is last. The comparison on this page is something you run: a planned number, an actual number, and a decision to move money or change the plan. A variance report, a budget-vs-actual screen, or category rollover: Not documented on the pricing page. The pricing page lists an autopilot budget on Free and on Pro, next to the home screen and a spending map. That is the budget the pricing page names. The six-line gap in the example is still a comparison you can make from the spending record.

The record is the part the pricing page does specify. Receipt photos and emailed receipts are one monthly count, 20 a month on Free and 200 a month on Pro. Apple Pay and Google Wallet purchases are logged as you pay, on Free and on Pro. A grocery trip paid that way lands as you pay it, which is the actual in the groceries line, including a purchase that would otherwise wait for a receipt photo. Ask FYN is 20 questions a month on Free and 500 on Pro. You can ask about the spending you have saved and put that total next to the plan you wrote. The questions do not replace the subtraction.

The free plan is $0. It does not expire and does not ask for a card. It includes 1 household member on Free. You can start there without linking a bank. A read-only connector lets assistants such as Claude and ChatGPT read FYN data. The free plan includes 500 MCP calls a day. Pro includes 10,000 a day. The MCP docs say a free account does not sync bank accounts, so tools that read bank data return little or no data until a bank is linked. Linking a bank is not on the free plan.

Pro is $9.99 a month. Bank sync is Pro only, through Plaid, for up to 15 accounts. That feed is how a charge with no receipt photo still shows up in the actual column, including rent and the savings transfer. The pricing page lists unlimited household members on Pro. Everyone shares the plan's limits. The pricing FAQ says a shared member can be an owner, a member, or view-only. The household page is the longer description of those roles. Monarch also publishes an MCP connector, on Core and Plus, read-only unless you allow write. Updated October 22, 2026. FYN is not the only one. The plan table is on pricing.

FAQ

Sources

Checked October 29, 2026. These are the pages behind the guide. A line marked Not documented is a fact the linked page does not state.

• CFPB, Consumer tips for managing spending, February 2017. Compare actual spending with the budget, monthly or more often. Adjust the budget if it is regularly out of line: Consumer tips for managing spending.
• CFPB, My New Money Goal worksheet. Last month's actual expenses, this month's targets, and, at the end of the month, real-life spending compared with the projections. You may not hit every target the first month: My new money goal.
• CFPB, June 5, 2019. A week of receipts is one way to keep up. Update the budget when employment or spending habits change: Budgeting: How to create a budget and stick with it.
• Take-home pay and fixed bills, before you pick a method: how to make a budget.
• Assigning every dollar until income minus assignments equals zero: zero-based budgeting.
• A cap you fill before you spend, and stop or move when it is empty: envelope budgeting.
• A monthly amount for a bill that does not come every month: sinking funds.
• Needs, wants, and savings as three percentages: the 50/30/20 budget rule.
• A set amount moved to savings or investing before you spend the rest: pay yourself first.
• The balance you have now, minus bills due before the next paycheck: how to calculate safe to spend.
• Creating your budget in Monarch, updated October 22, 2026. Category and flex budgeting. Planned, Actual, and Remaining on the web. A red remaining amount, like -$65. Move money to cover an overspend, and the month's total stays the same. Flex moves are to or from the flexible bucket. A six-month prefill. A $0 category is hidden and still shows spending when opened. Transfer and Credit Card Payment are excluded from the budget: Creating your budget.
• Monarch rollover budgets, updated August 14, 2026. Expense categories only. Last month's rollover, plus planned, minus actual, equals the next rollover. The illustration is -$25, plus $100, minus $50, equals $25: Rollover budgets.
• Monarch monthly progress report, updated May 7, 2026. A mobile dashboard card. Plan progress is Actual vs Planned: Monthly progress report.
• Monarch Core and Plus prices, the 7-day trial, and the payment method. Core $14.99 a month or $99.99 a year ($8.33 a month). Plus $199.99 a year ($16.67 a month): monarch.com/pricing.
• Monarch pricing help, updated March 3, 2026. Paid subscriptions only. Prices are in US dollars, plus tax where it applies: Pricing.
• Trial length, annual price, and discounts, in one place: Monarch Money pricing.
• Monarch MCP connector, updated October 22, 2026. On Core and Plus. Read-only unless you allow write: Monarch MCP connector.
• FYN pricing. Free is $0 and does not ask for a card. Receipts are 20 a month on Free and 200 a month on Pro. Apple Pay and Google Wallet purchases are logged as you pay. Ask FYN is 20 questions a month on Free and 500 on Pro. Pro is $9.99 a month. Bank sync is Pro only, up to 15 accounts. The pricing page lists 1 household member on Free and unlimited household members on Pro. A variance report, a budget-vs-actual screen, or category rollover is not on that page: pricing.
• FYN household roles. An owner, a member, or view-only: household.
• What a free FYN account can and cannot read through the connector: MCP docs.