Mid-year financial check-up: 5 steps to get your finances back on track
January resolutions have a short shelf life for most of us. By June, rising costs and competing priorities have usually taken their toll on even the most carefully considered financial plans. That’s not a failure of effort; it’s just how life tends to unfold.
What you do have right now is something genuinely useful: six months of actual spending, saving and financial behaviour to reflect on. The second half of the year is yours to use wisely… here’s where to start.
Step 1: Look at what you’ve actually spent
Pull out your bank statements from the last six months. Go through them properly. Most people are genuinely caught off guard by what they see.
What to Check
- Are you overspending in the same areas every month?
- Any forgotten direct debits or subscriptions still going out?
- Has your income or any regular bills changed this year?
Most budgets don’t collapse overnight. A subscription renews quietly. A takeaway becomes a twice-weekly habit. A bill goes up and you don’t notice. None of it feels like much at the time.
Getting your spending under control
Write down everything fixed that leaves your account each month: mortgage or rent, bills, insurance, loan repayments. Then look at the rest. Decide what’s worth keeping and what isn’t. The idea isn’t to cut back on everything. It’s to actually choose where your money goes rather than wondering where it went.
Step 2: Check on your savings
We’re regularly asked how people should go about tracking their wealth. The answer isn’t complicated. You need to know what you’ve saved, where it’s held and whether it’s growing the way it should be.
Your emergency fund
Before looking at anything else, make sure your emergency fund is in decent shape. Three to six months of essential outgoings in an accessible account is the general guidance most advisers follow. If you’ve had to use some of it this year, work out how you’ll build it back up and by when.
The rest of your savings
Once the emergency fund is covered, look at what else you have.
- Have you used any of your ISA allowance this tax year? You can save up to £20,000 before April 2027 and unused allowance doesn’t roll over.
- When did you last look at the rate on your savings account? Rates have changed quite a bit in recent years and you may find better options are now available.
- If you’re saving towards a specific goal, are you actually on course?
Half an hour spent on this is usually enough to tell you whether anything needs to change.
Step 3: Are you on track for retirement?
This is the question new clients ask us more than any other. The uncomfortable reality is that most people have never worked out whether their pension will give them the retirement income they want. They know contributions are going in, but they haven’t looked at whether the total will be enough or what happens on the way out when the time comes to take it.
What you’re contributing
Have a look at your current pension contributions and think carefully about whether they’re sufficient.
- Are you contributing as much as your circumstances allow?
- Does your employer match your contributions? If you’re not taking the full match, you’re leaving money on the table.
- When did you last increase what you’re putting in? The difference between contributing 5% and 7% over 20 or 30 years is substantial.
The fund itself
A large number of people are still in the default investment fund they were placed into when auto-enrolled. That fund may be appropriate for your age and goals, or it may not. Log in and check rather than leave it to chance.
While you’re at it, spend a few minutes on the HMRC website looking at your State Pension forecast. Gaps in your National Insurance record can sometimes be filled. And if you’ve accumulated pension pots from previous employers, it’s worth tracking them down so you have a full picture.
Step 4: Look over your protection policies
Protection cover is easy to overlook in a financial review because it doesn’t feel as tangible as a savings balance. However, it sits at the foundation of your financial security.
Your life insurance, income protection and any critical illness cover were arranged at a specific point in time. Since then, things may have changed considerably. A new mortgage, a growing family, a job change, higher earnings. Your cover needs to reflect where you are now, not where you were when you first took out the policy.
Things to consider
- Does your life insurance cover what your family would actually need if you weren’t there? Check it against your current mortgage balance and your household’s financial commitments.
- If illness or injury stopped you from working for six months, would your finances hold up? Income protection exists precisely for that situation.
- If you’ve recently moved to a new employer, review what protection benefits come with the role. Death in service and group income protection are worth understanding, and they’re often overlooked when starting somewhere new.
- If you don’t have any protection cover, perhaps now’s the time to consider what would happen to you and your family if you died, got a serious illness or couldn’t work. Then, speak to an adviser to put a bespoke package of protection insurance in place.
Step 5: Set clear targets for the months ahead
Having reviewed everything, put down some specific targets for the rest of 2026. Open intentions don’t tend to turn into results. Clear targets do.
What good goal setting looks like
“Save more money” tells you nothing useful. “Save £250 a month by cutting two subscriptions and having less takeaways” is something you can follow through on. There’s a meaningful difference between the two.
Some targets worth considering:
- Replenishing your emergency fund to a level you’re comfortable with
- Clearing a specific debt before December, whether that’s a credit card, overdraft or personal loan
- Increasing your pension contributions before the end of the tax year
- Using your remaining ISA allowance before April 2027
- Getting a will drafted or a lasting power of attorney in place if neither exists yet
- Putting in place life insurance (including critical illness cover and income protection) to look after your family.
Pick two or three. Put a reminder in your calendar for the start of each month to check your progress. That small habit makes a bigger difference than most people expect.
The value of reviewing now rather than later
A couple of hours spent on this now gives you six months to act on what you find. That’s far more useful than waiting until the new year and starting from scratch again.
If you’d like to go through your finances with an independent financial adviser who can give you guidance specific to your circumstances, the team at Fairview is here to help. Get in touch with us today!