PERSONAL ACCOUNT

Spring is the perfect time to revisit your financial goals and plan ahead

Here’s to a prosperous new year. The end of the working week saw the turning of the tax year, always a busy time for money management. This weekend, after the rush, it’s worth pausing to note the oddness of the date itself.

The tax year’s April 6 start is one of the last fossils of a great old tradition. Our legal and financial year always used to end – and begin again – with the arrival of spring.

In fact, the new year used to start more than a week earlier, on March 25, or Lady Day. Nine months before Christmas, Lady Day marks for Christians the date of the Annunciation, when Mary accepts that she will bear the son of God.

For centuries, Lady Day served as a moment of hope and rebirth, both spiritual and pragmatic. Annual farm contracts were renewed. Candles were put away and fires banked in preparation for warmer days to come.

But when Britain adopted the Gregorian calendar in the autumn of 1752, the correction of our dating system meant that the year jumped overnight from Sept 2 to Sept 14. This jump presented the taxman with a horrifying prospect: 11 fewer days in which to collect revenue. The solution was to make every year after 1752 start 11 days later, on April 5, a date which came to be known as “Old Lady Day”.

In 1800, a further day’s correction for a rogue leap year took the date to April 6. There it remains, an arbitrary memorial to the desire of taxmen throughout history to wring every last drop of revenue from each passing year. That thought alone is a useful reminder for anyone wishing to make prudent plans to safeguard their money.

But as the turning of the tax year still falls in springtime, the older tradition is worth observing as well. January’s freezing weather is a thankless time for keeping resolutions. Combining the depths of winter with the post-Christmas spending hangover makes it an even worse moment for embarking on any planned course for financial self-improvement.

Spring is altogether different. Growth is in the air. Buoyed by chocolate and the prospect of better weather, April is the perfect time to take steps toward fresh financial beginnings.

Start by looking back. Take some time to assess how things went for you in the past tax year. Then begin to plan for the future. Think carefully about what your financial targets are. How have your priorities changed? What time horizon do you need to look to? What level of risk can you tolerate? How much time can you devote to managing your investments?

Now open your diary and mark two new dates: June 24 and Sept 29. These, with Lady Day and Christmas Day, are the traditional quarter days of the English year.

Midsummer and Michaelmas (Scottish readers may prefer Lammas on August 1) can still serve as valuable moments to check your progress. Use

Take steps now to plan for your financial future