A Money Calendar: Twelve Tasks, One Per Month, Done in an Hour

Nobody sits down and decides to overpay for insurance, leave savings in a dead account and forget an old pension. It happens because household finance has no maintenance schedule. Here is one. Each task takes under an hour, and you do one a month.

January: Total the year

Add up last year's income, spending and savings. Not a budget, just the three numbers. This is your baseline and it takes twenty minutes with downloaded statements.

February: Audit subscriptions

Go through three months of statements line by line. Cancel anything you have not used since the last audit. Recurring charges are the most reliably recoverable money in any budget.

March: Check the emergency fund

Is it still equal to the number of months you decided on? Fixed costs rise, so a fund that covered three months last year may cover two now. Adjust the automatic transfer.

April: Insurance review

List every policy, its renewal date and its premium. Get one comparison quote for each. Cancel anything that fails the catastrophic-versus-annoying test.

May: Credit report

Pull your full report from each bureau. Check for accounts you do not recognise, wrong addresses and errors. Dispute anything incorrect in writing.

June: Pension and long-term savings

Check the contribution rate, the employer match threshold, the fund and the charges. Track down any pension from an old employer.

July: Rate check on cash

Compare the rate on every savings account you hold against current best-buy rates. Moving money takes twenty minutes and is often the highest-value task on this calendar.

August: Bills and utilities

Check contract end dates for energy, broadband, mobile and insurance. Diarise each renewal with a one-month warning so you never roll onto a default tariff.

September: Debt position

List every debt with balance, rate and minimum. Check for a lower-rate route: balance transfer, consolidation, or simply asking for a reduction.

October: Tax check

Confirm your tax code or withholding is right, check for reliefs you have not claimed, and if self-employed, confirm the tax reserve matches the expected bill.

November: Documents

Check that your will, beneficiaries on pensions and insurance policies, and next-of-kin details are current. This is the task everyone postpones and the one that causes the most damage when neglected.

December: Set next year's targets

One savings target, one debt target, one earning target. Increase the automatic transfers to match, effective January.