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Once the house is decluttered and the oven cleaned, there might still be one item missing from your spring cleaning checklist: a refresh of your investments.
Taking a long term and largely hands-off approach to investing is better for most people than constantly tinkering, but it’s still important to review every now and then.
The new tax year is the perfect time to check back in with your investments and see if your portfolio is in need of a bit of TLC.
Please note that this article is for information purposes only and does not constitute advice. Please refer to the particular terms and conditions of an investment platform before committing to any financial products.
What are your goals?
Whether it’s looking ahead to retirement or building a pot for children and grandchildren, your investments should match what you want to get out of them. But your goals might not be the same as when you started.
Camilla Esmund, retail investment expert at interactive investor, recommends, ‘Ask yourself whether your circumstances have changed. A promotion, a new mortgage, children, or retirement moving closer can all affect your financial plans.’
If your goals are 10 or more years into the future, you might be able to take on a bit more risk. But if you want to access your money sooner, you don’t want the value of your portfolio to fluctuate and risk dropping right when you need to take your money out.
With this in mind, you might want to consider gradually shifting money you want to access soon away from any higher-risk investments in your portfolio, like individual stocks or more adventurous funds, towards lower-risk options like bonds or cash.
- Find out more: how much you need to retire.
Has your philosophy changed?
It’s worth checking in on your overall strategy from time to time, too. If you’re investing directly in shares, it might be that you can’t see a company you once had faith in keeping up in the age of AI. Or, what once seemed like the future now feels like just a fad.
But, there’s an important distinction between a company headed towards permanent failure and one going through a rough patch. So, try to find the balance between being too hasty to sell off investments at the first sign of trouble, and hanging onto a dud – both will lead to you losing out unnecessarily.
Are you still diversified?
Keeping your investments diversified is an important protection against steep drops in value and ensuring the amount of risk you take on is aligned to your goals.
When you set up your portfolio, you might have put a lot of thought into how to allocate your money, keeping in mind the amount of risk you want to take on for your circumstances. But, over time, your portfolio will change shape as certain sectors drive huge returns and others flounder.
The huge growth in value of US stocks over the past few years might mean they make up a bigger part of your portfolio than you realised, and leave you more exposed than you might like to be.
You can either sell the assets that are now over-represented in your portfolio, or buy more of those that have shrunk as a proportion of your investments.
Rebalancing your portfolio once a year strikes a happy medium between making changes too often (and picking up unnecessary transaction costs in the process), and leaving your investments unchecked for so long that they become out of kilter with your intentions.
- Find out more: best stocks and shares Isas 2026.
How your asset allocation might change over time
If you had set up your investments three years ago and left them entirely alone, the balance will have changed.
Source: S&P 500, FTSE 100, MSCI Emerging Markets Index, Bloomberg Global Aggregate Corporate Bond Index, FTSE Actuaries UK Conventional Gilts All Stocks Index
- Find out more: how to balance your investment portfolio.
Are you paying more tax than you need to?
A proper spring clean is the perfect chance to make sure you’re making the most of the tax-free investing opportunities you have each year – and this year’s changes mean you could save more with Isas than before.
As of April this year, dividend tax for basic and higher-rate taxpayers has risen by two percentage points to 10.75% and 35.75%, respectively. The additional rate remains at 39.35%.
If you’ve got investments in a general investment account and allowance to spare, you can move those investments across to an Isa using the ‘bed and Isa’ process. This lets you sell an investment in a general investment account and repurchase the same investment straight away in a stocks and shares Isa, junior Isa or self-invested personal pension (Sipp).
You can ask your investment platform whether it will allow you to make a bed and Isa transaction in a single process, which some platforms will handle for you, and save on transaction fees. Otherwise, you may have to sell your investments, move the cash to your Isa, and then repurchase the investments yourself.
Bear in mind that you could face a capital gains tax (CGT) bill if you sell an investment as part of a bed and Isa that produces a gain above the annual tax-free allowance of £3,000.
- Find out more: dividend tax explained.
Don’t overspend on fees
It’s also worth remembering that some stocks and shares Isas will give you better savings than others when you take into account fees, too.
We’ve put together our annual stocks and shares Isa reviews so you can find the best place for your investments, and avoid spending money on fees that you’re not getting back in quality service.
Without a crystal ball to rely on, savings on your stocks and shares Isa is one of the few guaranteed ways to boost your returns.
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