Your money regrets: what they can teach you (and 5 habits to set up)

The short answer: Most money regrets come from defaults, not bad decisions. Five habits fix the common ones: a regular subscription check, a call at the end of every phone or broadband contract, using your tax-free savings allowances, saving part of each pay rise, and tracking down old pensions. In 2026/27, tax relief turns £80 into £100 in a pension.

What money habits are worth setting up?

The best habits are small, boring and set to repeat. You decide once, then the calendar or your bank does the remembering. Most regrets are things we meant to sort and never got round to, so taking the remembering off your plate does a lot of the work.

Here are five that tackle the most common money leaks. Pick one to start.

The figures come from the sources linked in each section below. They're averages and totals, so your own numbers will be different.

You can keep spending on the things you enjoy. The aim is to stop paying for things you've stopped using, and to claim money that's already yours.

Capital at risk. The value of your pension can go down as well as up, and you may get back less than you pay in.

Tax treatment depends on the individual circumstances of each client and may be subject to change in future.

How do I stop paying for subscriptions I don't use?

Put a 15-minute subscription check in your calendar every 3 months, and cancel anything you wouldn't sign up for again today. Most of us didn't choose our subscriptions so much as drift into them.

If a few have slipped through, you're in good company. Citizens Advice found that unused subscriptions cost UK consumers £688 million in a year. 40% of accidental subscriptions happened because they auto-renewed without people knowing.

To run the check:

1. Open your banking app and look at the last 3 months of card payments and Direct Debits.

2. List everything that repeats: streaming, apps, gyms, cloud storage, delivery passes.

3. For each one, ask: "Would I buy this again today?"

4. Cancel the ones that get a "no", and note the date the last payment goes out.

5. Book the next check in your calendar before you close the app.

If a company makes cancelling hard, you have another route. For a recurring card payment, the FCA says your card issuer can't insist that you contact the business first. You need to ask by the end of the business day before the next payment is due. If a payment is taken after that, your card issuer must refund it.

Cancelling should also get easier. New subscription rules under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act are due to start in January 2027, according to law firm Latham & Watkins. Firms will have to remind you before a subscription renews, and you'll get 14 days to cancel without penalty after a free or discounted trial ends. If you signed up online, you'll be able to cancel online too. Until then, your calendar does the reminding.

How can I pay less for broadband and mobile?

Call your provider when your contract ends and ask for their best deal. It's one awkward conversation, and for many people it pays off for the whole year.

Citizens Advice found that people who call and negotiate save more than £325 a year on average, across mobile and broadband combined. Almost 1 in 3 people negotiated at the end of their last contract. But three quarters of people who tried found it hard, for example being left on hold, so it helps to go in prepared.

You don't need to guess when your deal ends. Ofcom's rules mean phone, broadband and pay-TV companies must warn you between 10 and 40 days before your contract ends. The message must show what you pay now, what you'll pay after, and the provider's best deals, including prices only offered to new customers. If you're already out of contract, they must remind you every year.

When that message lands:

• Check what new customers pay for the same service.

• Call and say you're reviewing your bills and might switch.

• Ask for the best price they can offer to keep you.

• If they can't improve it, compare other providers before you decide.

If calls aren't your thing, write the script down and read it out. The discomfort lasts a few minutes.

Am I paying tax on savings I don't need to?

Probably not, but it's worth a once-a-year check, because the allowances are generous and easy to forget. Most people can earn some interest tax-free, and an ISA keeps more of it out of reach of tax.

GOV.UK sets out how much savings interest you can earn tax-free each tax year (6 April to 5 April):

These are the 2026/27 Income Tax bands: basic rate on income from £12,571 to £50,270, higher rate from £50,271 to £125,140. There's also a starting rate for savings. If your other taxable income is under £17,570, you may be able to earn up to £5,000 of interest without paying tax on it.

You don't usually pay tax on interest earned inside an ISA. In 2026/27 you can save up to £20,000 across your ISAs.

One more allowance people often miss. If you're married or in a civil partnership and one of you earns less than the Personal Allowance, Marriage Allowance lets you transfer £1,260 of it to your partner. That can cut their tax by up to £252 a year, if they're a basic-rate taxpayer. You can backdate a claim to 6 April 2022 for any years you qualified.

What should I do with a pay rise?

Decide where it goes before the first bigger payslip arrives. If you wait, it quietly turns into nicer versions of what you already buy. People call this lifestyle creep, and it happens to almost everyone.

One simple rule is a "raise split": send part of every rise to future you, and enjoy the rest guilt-free. The split is up to you. These are ways to plan, not recommended amounts.

Pensions are one place future-you money can go, because of tax relief. If you have a workplace pension, the legal minimum is 8% in total: at least 3% from your employer and 5% from you, on earnings between £6,240 and £50,270 a year. You can ask your employer or scheme whether you can pay in more than that.

With a pension that uses relief at source, your provider claims 20% tax relief and adds it to your pot. So £80 from you becomes £100. If you pay higher-rate tax, you can claim extra relief through your Self Assessment tax return. You get relief on payments up to 100% of your earnings, and the annual allowance is £60,000.

Example: a £2,000 pay rise, worked through

These numbers are made up, to show how a split works.

• Sam earns £30,000 and gets a £2,000 pay rise, to £32,000.

• Sam decides to put half of it towards a personal pension that uses relief at source.

• Sam pays in £800 a year (about £67 a month) from take-home pay.

• The provider claims £200 in tax relief, so £1,000 a year goes into the pot.

• The other £1,000 of the rise is Sam's to spend, before tax and National Insurance.

Sam's lifestyle still gets an upgrade. It's just a smaller one, and future Sam gets one too. If you're unsure what suits you, MoneyHelper's free pensions guidance can help, and our flexible pension calculator lets you try different amounts.

How do I find a lost pension?

Start with a list of every employer you've worked for, then use the Pension Tracing Service to find contact details for each scheme. You need the name of an employer or a pension provider to search.

It's a common problem. The Pensions Policy Institute estimates there are 3.3 million lost pension pots in the UK, worth £31.1 billion.

The tracing service won't tell you whether you have a pension or what it's worth. It gives you who to contact, and the scheme can tell you the rest. Once you've found old pots, our beginner's guide to pension consolidation explains what to check before combining them.

While you're there, look at your State Pension too:

• Check your State Pension forecast to see how much you could get, when, and whether you can increase it.

• Check your National Insurance record for gaps, and whether paying voluntary contributions to fill them would help.

Our guide to the UK State Pension explains how qualifying years work.

Why does "I'll sort it in January" never work?

Because January isn't a plan, it's a postponement in a party hat. Future you has the same habits and the same busy weeks. The fix is to do one small thing now, while you're thinking about it.

January is also busy for anyone who files a tax return. For the 2025/26 tax year, the Self Assessment deadline to file online and pay is 11:59pm on 31 January 2027. Miss it and you'll be charged £100, with more if the return is over 6 months late.

Pick one of these 10-minute jobs today:

1. Book your next 4 subscription checks in your calendar.

2. Cancel one subscription you don't use.

3. Find the end date of your phone or broadband contract.

4. Write down every employer you've had, for pension tracing.

5. Check your State Pension forecast.

6. Set up a payday transfer to savings, the day after you're paid.

7. Put the Self Assessment deadline in your calendar, with a reminder 4 weeks before.

Once a habit is running, it keeps working in the background. If money worries feel bigger than a habit can fix, our piece on the psychology of money is a kinder place to start.

Still got questions?

What are the most common money regrets? Paying for things you've stopped using, staying on old deals, spending pay rises without noticing and putting off pension admin. Most come from defaults rather than bad choices, which is why small habits help.

Can my bank cancel a subscription for me? For a recurring card payment, yes. The FCA says you can ask your card issuer to stop it, and it can't make you contact the business first. Ask by the end of the business day before the payment is due.

Do I pay tax on savings interest? Only on interest above your allowances. A basic-rate taxpayer can usually earn £1,000 of interest tax-free, and you don't usually pay tax on interest inside an ISA.

Is it too late to fix last year's money mistakes? Usually not. Some things can even be backdated: you can claim Marriage Allowance back to 6 April 2022 for years you qualified. Most habits start working from the day you set them up.

How do I know if I have a lost pension? If you've had several jobs, it's worth checking. The Pension Tracing Service gives you scheme contact details, and the scheme can tell you whether you have a pot and what it's worth.

Who can give me free help with money? MoneyHelper offers free, impartial guidance. Everyone's situation is different, so we can't say what's right for you, but they can talk it through with you.