New financial year checklist: 9 tasks BEFORE the new year

All the things you need to prepare for the new financial year 

As the new financial year looms, a lot of changes are coming which could impact our personal finances, from stamps to savings allowances. 

We’ve rounded up a checklist of things you can do to prepare in the run up to the new tax year. Keep an eye on the exact dates, as some of these will could change at the end of March, 1 or 2 April, and others on 6 April. Click through to our dedicated guides for more information on each one. 

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1. Adjust standing orders to bills accounts

If you’re currently dropping money into a separate account to pay your bills from — whether that’s a joint account with your partner or a solo account, you might want to do some extra calculations to make sure you’re budgeting enough. 

A lot of bills will go up from April, including 

• Council tax: up by 5% for most people
• Water: up by around 26% or £123 on average
• Broadband and mobile bills: up by 6.4% (or between £1 and £4 a month, depending on the contract, when you took it out and the provider)
• TV Licence: going up by £5 to £174.50 a year  

Take a minute to look at the rises you’re facing, and ensure you have enough going into your bills account so you don’t get any returned direct debits or go into expensive overdrafts. You could also consider getting a current account that pays cashback on household bills to try and recoup some of the cost. For example, the Santander Edge account pays 1% cashback on household bills up to £10 a month, and costs £3 a month.

In addition, dental fees are rising by about 2.3% and you’ll pay more across all three bands of treatment. So if this is something you usually pay for using your emergency fund, you may want to put more away — or consider getting an appointment before April if you have a lot of work to do.

2. Take a meter reading for your energy bill

On 1 April, we have a new energy price cap taking effect, which will push bills up by 6.4% or £1,849 a year for the average household. This will come into play automatically, but to ensure you’re charged correctly, you should take a meter reading on, or as close to, 31 March as possible. This means that your energy company won’t have to estimate how much was used before 1 April.  

It’s not a huge deal if you don’t do this, but with this kind of increase, you want to make sure your prices are correct. 

There are a handful of fixed deals available which might be worth considering too.

3. See if you can get a better deal on broadband and mobile

As of January 17 this year, the rules around inflation-linked contract price hikes changed. The communications regulator Ofcom banned this type of price rise for broadband, mobile and pay-TV contracts to protect customers from the volatile and unpredictable nature of inflation. Instead, providers must be clear about price rises at the point of sale, put them in pounds and pence and state when customers can expect the new price to hit.

The idea is to give customers certainty about exactly how much more they’ll be charged and when. But, we’ve seen is providers actually increasing the prices more than they might’ve under the old rules. So your mobile or broadband deal could actually end up more expensive, especially if you’ve got a low-cost contract.

If you’re out of contract, consider switching your broadband or mobile phone providers or haggling with your existing one to get a better deal. 

You ideally want to do this after the hikes to ensure you’re not going to get a price increase come April. 

4. Stock up on stamps

The price of stamps is going up on 7 April 2025. We’ll be paying 5p more for standard First-class stamps and 55p more to send large letters in the same class.

So if you send a lot of letters, you might want to buy a couple of books before the price rises, although make sure you stick to a reputable retailer like the Post Office, Sainsbury’s or WH Smith to avoid getting ripped off or accidentally buying fake stamps.

And make sure you remember where you put them, so you don’t end up buying them twice.

5. Fill up your ISAs

Each tax year (6 April to 5 April), you have a £20,000 allowance to put into individual savings accounts (ISAs). This makes your interest or profit, depending on the type, tax-free. 

Your allowance can be split between several types, including the Lifetime ISA, the Stocks and Shares ISA and the Cash ISA. 

But the allowance isn’t rolled over if you don’t use it, so it’s worth making the most out of it if you have large amounts of savings or are worried about going over your Personal Savings Allowance next year. 

But while it’s a good idea to top up your ISA if you’ve not yet used up your allowance, be careful not to go over it. It can be an easy mistake to make and there are a few things you’ll need to do to fix it.

Towards the end of the tax year, we often see ISA providers ramp up their rates to try and attract last minute savers. We keep our ISA rates updated on the daily and transferring your ISA to a new provider (ideally paying a higher rate) doesn’t count towards your annual allowance.

And if you’re wanting to do a ‘bed and ISA transfer’ you’ll need to be quick. Now this term refers to a process where you move your investments held outside of an ISA, into the ISA. 

However, as you can transfer them directly you need to sell them first and then buy them back at the same time within the ISA. The aim is to end up with the same portfolio as before but just kept within your ISA.

Different providers will have different deadlines so you’ll need to check with them. But I’d suggest doing it sooner rather than later.

6. Top up your kids’ ISAs

If you’ve opened Junior ISAs for your children, you can pay in up to £9,000 in every tax year. As with adult ISAs, the allowance can’t be carried over, so if you don’t use it, you lose it.

7. Buy extra State Pension years

There’s only a few weeks left to plug old gaps in your National Insurance to ensure you get the full State Pension when you reach State Pension age. You can make voluntary contributions until April 5 to fill in missing years that go back to 2006. After the deadline, you can only go back the previous six years.

National Insurance is a tax you pay when you start working and earn above a certain amount. You typically need 35 years of National Insurance contributions to get the full State Pension. However, you might have gaps if you took time off work, worked abroad or if you were earning below the threshold.

Topping up your National Insurance contributions could be worth thousands of pounds to some people, especially those above the age of 40. The younger you are, the more likely you are to build up your National Insurance contributions through work – so buying extra contributions could be a waste of money.

You can check your State Pension forecast on the Government website to check how much you could potentially receive and how much it could cost to plug any gaps.

8. Pay less tax with the marriage allowance

The marriage allowance can reduce your tax bill by up to £252 in the next tax year, so it’s worth considering. If you applied last year, this will happen again this year, however, if this isn’t something you’re taking advantage of yet, you can backdate it. 

This lets you shift some of your tax-free allowance over to your spouse if you earn less than £12,570 per year. 

The high earner needs to earn between £12,570 and £50,270. You can shift up to 10% of your tax-free allowance over. As the name suggests, you need to be married or in a civil partnership to be able to do this. 

9. Add more to your pension

The annual pension allowance rose to £60,000 in April 2023, so you can put up to this amount into your personal pension tax-free. 

You also carry forward unused allowances for three years at a time, and you can get tax relief on your contributions worth up to 100% of your annual earnings, so you get a boost to what you pay in, known as relief at source.

If you’re a higher or additional rate taxpayer, putting more into your pension, and technically lowering your taxable income, can also allow you to keep more of your Child Benefit, boost your Personal Savings Allowance and reinstate your Personal Allowance.