Stop guessing and start growing. Use these 3 simple tasks, powered by Emma's newest features, to achieve total clarity, boost your credit, and save more in 2026.

The financial landscape in 2026 is demanding. With inflation settling and housing costs remaining high, every pound you spend needs to be intentional. Achieving financial health isn't about magical secrets; it's about executing a few fundamental tasks consistently, leveraging smart tools to do the heavy lifting.

Here are the three essential financial tasks you need to master this year, all powered by the latest updates to your financial tool.

Task 1: Achieve Total Financial Clarity (Know Where Every Pound Is)

You can't manage what you don't measure. The starting point for financial improvement is gathering all your bank accounts, credit cards, and investments into one secure dashboard. But even with Bank Account Aggregation, two problems always remain: messy transfers and generic tagging.

The Solution: Accurate Reporting & Seamless Customisation

When it comes to setting a new personal budget, you should start by thinking about what you want to achieve financially over the next year. Think about all areas of your finances, (savings, spending, debt, pensions etc) and work on setting some goals.

1. Stop Inflating Your Spending: The most common budgeting error occurs when internal money movements - like transferring £500 from your Current Account to your ISA - are incorrectly recorded as "Spending." These transfers often distort monthly reports and trigger false overspending alerts. We solve this instantly with the New Dedicated 'Transfer' Category. This feature automatically recognises and separates funds moving between your own accounts, ensuring your spending reports are 100% accurate.
2. Tagging Made Simple: Once your data is accurate, tagging needs to be fast. We've Streamlined the Custom Category Picker to display your personalized budget buckets (like 'Holiday Fund' or 'New Laptop') first. This saves you time and improves the accuracy of your financial records.

By bringing all your money into a single view and cleaning up the internal transfers, you finally achieve the total clarity needed to move to the next task.

How To Set New Budgets:

This January you could try using a money management app like Emma to set a new monthly budget. Just open the app and click on the Analytics tab. From here you’ll see the word “budgets” in the top right-hand corner. You can start by setting a total budget, or you can delve deeper and set individual budgets by category.

If you’re not sure how much to budget for each category, the Emma app offers suggestions by showing you your previous average spend by category. This is based on your recent spending history. Once you’ve set all your budgets by category, make sure that the total amount isn’t more than the amount of money you have to spend. If it is, continue balancing your budget.

Throughout the month Emma will group your spending into these categories, helping you keep track of how much you’ve spent vs how much your budget allows. We’ll also occasionally send you notifications letting you know if you’re likely to overspend in any area, giving you a little nudge to reduce your spending, or cut back in other areas.

For more information on setting budgets in Emma, head to our FAQ page. If you can’t find the answer you’re looking for, you can message our live chat or drop us a message on the Emma community.

Task 2: Optimise and Own Your Spending (Filter Out the Noise)

Once you have a clean, clear view of your money, the next task is to optimize your spending habits. This requires precision that a simple high-level category can't provide.

The Solution: Surgical Precision with Subcategories and Exclusions

1. Unlock Granularity with Subcategories: A £500 expense under 'Transportation' doesn't help you save. We introduced Subcategories so you can break down major spending into actionable insights. For example, under the primary category 'Eating Out,' you can now differentiate between 'Office Lunch' and 'Night Out (Restaurants)'. This immediately shows you if your budget is being drained by necessary networking or daily convenience. This level of granularity is crucial for identifying wasteful spending that often hides in plain sight. Dive deeper into how this feature works on our blog post: Precision is Power: Introducing Subcategories.
2. Focus on Discretionary Cash Flow: Sometimes, a massive annual payment - like a large tax bill, a quarterly insurance payment, or a lump-sum investment - will completely skew your charts. With our Excluded Categories in Analytics & Budgeting, you can now filter these large, non-discretionary transfers out of your main dashboard view. This provides a cleaner, more honest view of your daily cash flow, allowing you to focus your budgeting efforts solely on controllable, discretionary spending.

How To Review Your Subscriptions:

This January take the time to review which of your subscriptions still serve you. You might find that you no longer need, or want, some of the subscriptions you’re paying for each month. You might even find that you’re paying for something that you’d completely forgotten about!

Money management apps like Emma can help you review all your subscriptions in a matter of minutes. Once you’ve downloaded the app and have linked all your accounts, we’ll be able to scan through your transactions and pick out the recurring payments. We group all of these payments into a recurring payment section on the app, helping you clearly understand what regular payments you have, when they’re due, and how much they’re likely to cost.

Task 3: Build Wealth and Future-Proof Your Finances

The final and most important task is ensuring your monthly financial habits are building toward your long-term goals, particularly in the competitive 2026 housing market.

1. Make Rent Count

For renters, one of the biggest challenges to homeownership is establishing credit history equivalent to mortgage payers. Our Rent Reporting feature addresses this directly by recognising your timely rent payments. This transforms your biggest monthly chore into a powerful financial asset, helping you build a stronger credit score.

2. Review Your Financial Safety Net

Now is the time to review all your major financial products. It’s a well-known fact that brands don’t offer the best deals for existing customers, so shopping around for new deals on your home, car, life and holiday insurance can be an excellent way to save some money. You should also check the performance and rates on your pension and credit cards to ensure you’re getting the best value for your money.

3. Long-Term Goal Setting

By using Subcategories to track your spending with precision, you can identify exactly how much surplus money you have each month. You can then direct this surplus, via automation, into investments or a dedicated savings pot, actively working toward that house deposit, debt freedom, or early retirement. Track your overall financial progress and watch your assets grow on our Net Worth feature page.