Quick money check that could save you big, before the tax year resets

The tax year ends on 5 April. After that a lot of simple opportunities to save money or claim it back either reset or become harder to sort out.

You don’t need to spend hours going through everything. If you give yourself half an hour today, you can quickly run through a few checks that could genuinely make a difference to your finances going into the new tax year.

Think of this less as a list to read and more as something you can move through, step by step.

Start with the easiest win: Are you owed anything for work?

If you’ve spent your own money doing your job or even on certain health costs linked to work there’s a good chance you could claim something back. That might include work expenses, if your job requires a uniform, specialist clothing or tools, you could be entitled to claim tax relief for these expenses, our free guide can take you through how to claim.

If you regularly use a screen at work, your employer should cover eye tests, and sometimes glasses. But in practice, many people pay upfront and never claim it back.

The same goes for health cash plans. If you have one through work or privately, you might be able to reclaim money for things like dental care, physio or optical costs.

If your job requires you to live far away from the office or your employer doesn’t have an office, our free guide can help you to claim tax relief for costs related to home working.

Mileage is another big one that often gets missed. If you use your own car for work journeys that are not your normal commute, but trips to meetings, sites or other workplaces, then your employer should usually reimburse you. If they don’t, or they pay less than the HMRC approved rate, you may be able to claim tax relief on the difference.

Take a minute to think back over the last year. Have you paid for anything like this and not followed it up? If so, it’s worth checking, even if the amounts feel small, they add up over time, and if you’ve never claimed before, you may be able to go back and claim for previous years too.

Check your tax code – this is where mistakes can quietly cost you

Your tax code isn’t something most people pay attention to, but it has a direct impact on how much tax you pay every month. If it’s wrong, you can end up overpaying without realising and because it’s spread out across your payslips it can be easy to miss.

You don’t need to decode everything, or have an accountancy qualification, just sense check it. Has anything changed recently, a new job, a second income or a benefit you no longer receive? If so, your tax code might not have caught up.

Take a look at your latest payslip or your HMRC account. If something doesn’t look right, it’s worth flagging now rather than carrying the issue into the next tax year.

Before the deadline passes, decide whether to use your ISA allowance

Every tax year, you get an ISA allowance. If you don’t use it by 5 April, it’s gone and you can’t carry it forward.

This doesn’t mean you should rush into putting money away just for the sake of it. But if you do have some savings sitting in a standard account, it’s worth asking whether you could make better use of the tax-free option. Even small amounts count. The key is that anything you put into an ISA grows free from tax, and that benefit builds over time.

Look at your energy and broadband

Bills have a habit of drifting upwards, especially if you haven’t checked them in a while. With energy prices shifting and April often bringing changes, this is a good moment to get a clear picture of what you’re paying and whether it still works for you.

You don’t necessarily need to switch today. But you should at least know what tariff you’re on, what you’re paying each month, and whether better options exist.

The same goes for broadband and mobile. If you’re out of contract, you’re often paying more than you need to. Even a quick call to your provider can lead to a better deal as this is one of those areas where a small bit of effort now can reduce your monthly costs for the rest of the year.

Take five minutes to scan your bank statement for subscriptions

Open your banking app and start to scroll, you’ll probably spot at least one or two payments you don’t really think about anymore, a streaming service you rarely use, domain name registrations you’re never going to use, an app you forgot to cancel or a subscription that quietly renewed in the background.

Individually they might not feel like much, but together, they can add up to a noticeable monthly drain. If you cancel even one or two, you’ve already improved your position going into the new tax year.

Still waiting on money you’re owed?

Think about the last few months. Did anything go wrong, a delayed journey, unused train ticket, a poor service, a billing issue, or a refund you never chased properly? It’s easy to write these things off, especially when life gets busy. But if something felt unresolved it’s worth revisiting now.

You don’t need to overhaul your finances before the tax year ends, but this is a natural checkpoint to make sure you’re not:

overpaying without realising
missing money you could claim
carrying avoidable costs into the next year

If you spend just half an hour working through these checks, you’re not just ticking boxes. You’re putting yourself in a better position for the year ahead and that’s time well spent.

If you’ve got an issue you never resolved, whether that’s a refund, a billing problem, or something you tried to claim back but didn’t get anywhere, you don’t have to leave it there.

Resolver does not provide financial advice, but it can help you raise complaints and escalate through the appropriate channels if you believe you have been treated unfairly.

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