Q: Reverted to old files?  Where are the newer files?

I shut my MacBook down a week ago for vacation. When I restarted it today, ALL my SAVES from ALL of August are gone.  I'm especially worried about my Excel and Word files.  I also lost some but not all Messages (weird?). 

I am a regular and frequent Saver, several times daily of those Excel & Word files.  I update those files nearly daily.  They are not in the Cloud, just on my laptop.  No, I don't want to put them on the Cloud.

The date on the laptop is correct.  My regular monthly backup would've been on Sep 1 and didn't happen since the laptop was off.  It looks like I'm viewing the Aug 1 version of those files, not the 8/25 (last) version.  How can I find those?  I have of course Spotlight searched and they are just not found.

Thank you.