Stop Guessing Your Spending: Import Your Monarch Money History into CardSavvy

The optimizer is only as good as its inputs, and until today its weakest input was you, guessing. "I probably spend $500 a month on groceries" is how most people fill in a spending profile, and a wrong guess can flip which card wins a category.

CardSavvy can now read the real numbers instead. Export your transaction history from Monarch Money, upload the CSV at card-savvy.com/import, review how it mapped your spending, and run the optimizer on what you actually spent.

Import your spending now →

How it works

The importer takes your last 12 months of transactions and does four things.

First, it throws out everything that is not card spending. Credit card payments, transfers between accounts, paychecks, interest, and cash withdrawals are excluded automatically, and the review screen shows you exactly what was dropped and why.

Second, it maps Monarch's budgeting categories to reward categories. Restaurants & Bars and Coffee Shops become Dining. Gas & Electric becomes Home Utilities. The mapping is visible and editable before anything reaches the optimizer.

Third, it splits the categories that budgeting apps lump together. Monarch files most purchases under "Shopping," but card rewards treat Amazon, Costco, and Walmart very differently from a boutique. The importer matches merchants, so those retailers land in their own categories. Travel splits the same way: airline merchants go to Flights, hotel merchants to Hotels.

Fourth, it annualizes. If your export covers eight months, totals are scaled to a 12-month estimate and labeled as such. Refunds are netted against their category.

Your data stays in your browser

This is the part we care most about. The CSV is parsed locally with your browser's file reader. Raw transactions, merchant names, and individual amounts are never transmitted to our servers.

The only thing that leaves the review screen is the set of annual category totals you approve, the same numbers you could have typed by hand. If you are logged in, those totals save to your account like any other spending profile. If you are not, they stay in your browser.

No bank login, no card numbers, no account syncing that breaks. The same privacy posture the optimizer has always had, now with better inputs.

Why budgeting categories are not reward categories

A caveat worth understanding: issuers award bonus points by merchant category code, the four-digit code the card networks assign to each merchant. Budgeting apps categorize by what the purchase was for. Those usually agree, but not always, and the gaps are where rewards get missed.

The classic example is Walmart. Your budget calls those trips groceries; the card networks code Walmart as a superstore, so most grocery bonus categories pay base rate there. The importer knows about these quirks for the merchants we track, and the review screen exists so you can correct anything else. Treat the result as a starting estimate that you refine, and it will still beat a guess by a wide margin.

Quick decision guide

You use Monarch Money: export from Settings, then Data, then Download Transactions, and import the file. Two minutes, and your optimizer inputs stop being guesses.

You use another budgeting app: a CSV with Date, Merchant, Category, and Amount columns works today, and app-specific presets are coming based on demand.

You do not track spending anywhere: the optimizer still works with estimates, and the US-average starting point gets you a useful result in two minutes.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does CardSavvy see my Monarch transactions?

No. The CSV is parsed entirely in your browser. Raw transactions never leave your device; only the annual category totals you review and approve reach the optimizer.

How do I export my transactions from Monarch Money?

On desktop, go to Settings, then Data, then Download Transactions for one CSV covering all accounts. For a single account, open it from the Accounts page, select Edit, then Download transactions.

Do I need a Monarch subscription for this to work?

You need the export file, and Monarch keeps exports available even after a subscription or trial ends. A generic CSV with Date, Merchant, Category, and Amount columns also works.

Will other budgeting apps be supported?

The importer detects the file format, so presets for YNAB and other apps can be added. Monarch Money is supported today.