Financielle Co-Founder and BBC Morning Live Money Expert Laura Pomfret gives her take on the new financial year and how you can take control.
TL;DR
Your new “money year” action list
Here are the things that are actually worth doing right now:
- Open your banking app and look at your actual numbers
- Open or top up your ISA – your £20,000 allowance has just reset
- Check your tax code on your next payslip and flag anything that looks off
- Redo your monthly budget with your current income and outgoings
- Set up at least one sinking fund for something you know is coming up this year
- Check your employer pension match – and use it if you’re not already
- Look up any old pension pots you might have lost track of
It’s a brand new money year! Whilst tax allowances may sound like the least exciting thing you’ve heard all week, April is actually one of my favourite money moments of the entire year.
Every April, the government hits reset on some money allowances, such as tax thresholds, ISA allowances, personal savings allowance to name but a few.
Whether your money situation right now is “thriving and on it” or “I haven’t checked my bank account since February and I’m scared” – this article is for you. The new financial year doesn’t care where you’re starting from, but it does give you a second chance at a fresh start in 2026.
Let’s go.
First: check where you actually are
Before you do anything else, I want you to do one thing. Especially if you are struggling and overwhelmed by your finances.
Open your banking app. Just look at the numbers. Not to judge yourself. Not to feel bad. Just to see them.
So many of us are running our financial lives blindly, but you can’t take control of something you’re refusing to look at and avoiding.
Once you’ve opened your app, I want you to note three things:
- What’s coming in each month
- What’s going out each month
- What’s left over (your “excess” — this is what you’re going to work with)
That’s it, that’s your starting point. Knowing your starting numbers is the first step to actually being able to do something about it.
Well done! You ripped the plaster off (band-aid for our non-UK friends).
Consider opening an ISA
An ISA can be a powerful tool and most people either don’t have one or aren’t using it properly.
Your ISA allowance has just reset to £20,000 for 2026/27. That means you can put up to £20,000 into an ISA this year and everything in it, any growth AKA any interest you earn is completely protected from tax.
But here’s something I really want you to take note of this year specifically: this is the last year you can put the full £20,000 into a cash ISA. From April 2027, the cash ISA limit drops to £12,000 for under-65s. So if you’ve been meaning to max it out, this is your year to do it.
Even if £20,000 feels like a lot right now (and it is a lot!), the point is to use whatever you can. Even £50 a month into an ISA is better than nothing. Start where you are.
Check your tax code
This one gets overlooked constantly, and it drives me absolutely mad, because an incorrect tax code can mean you’re quietly paying the wrong amount of tax every single month without even realising it.
Your tax code tells your employer how much income tax to deduct from your pay. The personal allowance is still £12,570 this year, that’s the amount you can earn before paying any income tax. If your tax code doesn’t reflect your actual situation, you could be overpaying (meaning HMRC owes you money) or underpaying (meaning you’ll get a bill later, not fun).
Find your tax code on your payslip. It should be something like 1257L. If it looks wildly different or if your life has changed recently, like a new job, a second income, or a company benefit, pop onto your HMRC personal tax account to check it’s right.
It’s boring admin but it genuinely takes ten minutes and can save you hundreds.
Give your budget a fresh start
April is basically January in the personal finance space. You could have new numbers to work with, maybe a pay rise, maybe a higher council tax bill (most areas went up this month, sorry), maybe a change in your outgoings. Whatever’s changed, your budget needs to reflect reality.
Here’s how I think about it. A budget isn’t a punishment. It’s permission to spend on areas that you really care about. It’s literally a plan for your money written down and committed before the month starts, so it’s not just spent impulsively followed by regret at the end of the month.
Sit down with a cup of tea or a coffee and go through your monthly income versus your regular outgoings. Then look at what’s left. That’s the money you get to decide what to do with. Saving it. Paying off debt. Building your sinking funds. Enjoying it guilt-free because you’ve already planned for everything else.
If you haven’t tried the Financielle app yet, this is literally what it’s built for. It helps you model your budget, set goals and actually see your progress. Tracking works, I promise.
Build your sinking funds (your secret weapon)
If I had to name the one early money habit that changes everything for people who find money overwhelming, it’s sinking funds. Hands down.
A sinking fund is a dedicated savings pot for a specific, expected expense. Your car insurance. Your summer holiday. Christmas if you celebrate it. Your friend’s hen do that somehow costs more than your rent. Instead of that bill arriving and you sticking it on the credit card because there’s no other option, you’ve already quietly saved for it.
You start a sinking fund, decide how much you need and when, and split it into monthly contributions. That’s it. By the time the bill arrives, the money is sitting there waiting.
The new financial year is the perfect time to look ahead at what’s coming up in the next 12 months. What big expenses do you know are on the horizon? Get ahead of them now.
Look at your pension
Pensions feel like they’re for people who are much older than you and much more organised than you. But here’s the reality: the earlier you pay attention to your pension, the more you benefit from the magic of compound growth, basically your money making more money, over and over, for decades.
A few things worth doing right now:
If you’re employed: Find out what your employer contributes to your pension. Some employers will match extra contributions beyond the minimum. That’s free money. Do not leave free money on the table.
If you’ve had multiple jobs: You almost certainly have old pension pots sitting around forgotten. The government’s Pension Tracing Service can help you find them. Consolidating can make them easier to manage – just do the maths on the fees and charges involved.
And a quick heads-up for the future planners among us: from April 2027, unused pension pots will be brought into inheritance tax for the first time. If you’re at a stage of life where that’s relevant, it’s worth having a think about what that means for you and maybe speaking to a regulated financial adviser about it.
You don’t have to do all of these today. You don’t have to be perfect. You just have to start.
Happy new money year. Let’s make it a good one.
The content produced by Financielle is for informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice