Your 40s often bring peak earnings alongside peak financial responsibility: mortgages, children, ageing parents, and a retirement that is now close enough to plan properly rather than think about vaguely. Here’s a checklist worth working through.

Build a proper emergency fund

Aim for three to six months of essential expenses in accessible savings. With a mortgage, dependants, and a more complex financial life than in your twenties, an emergency fund matters more than ever, and it protects you from having to sell investments or borrow at a bad time.

Review your protection

Life insurance, income protection, and critical illness cover often get set up once, when a mortgage is taken out, and never revisited. Check that cover levels still reflect your income, debts, and dependants, and that any life insurance is written in trust so it pays out quickly and outside your estate.

Get serious about pension contributions

Your 40s are typically your highest-earning decade, and pension contributions attract tax relief at your marginal rate, currently up to an annual allowance of £60,000. Check your pension is on track for the retirement income you want, and consider whether you can afford to increase contributions, particularly if you’ve had a pay rise or cleared other debts.

Weigh up mortgage overpayments against investing

With around fifteen to twenty-five years left on a typical mortgage at this age, it’s worth comparing the certainty of overpaying your mortgage against the potential long-term returns of investing more, including inside a pension where you’d also get tax relief. There’s no universally correct answer here; it depends on your mortgage rate, your appetite for risk, and how much certainty you value.

Plan for children’s costs, including education

If you have children, this decade often brings the highest childcare and education costs, and potentially decisions about private schooling or future university costs. A Junior ISA can be a useful, simple way to build a tax-free fund for a child’s future, alongside your own savings goals.

Make or update your will

If your circumstances have changed since your will was last written, or if you’ve never made one, this is the decade to sort it out. Check it still reflects your wishes, your family situation, and works alongside any life insurance and pension nominations.

Set up lasting power of attorney

It’s easy to think of power of attorney as something for much later in life, but it can only be set up while you have full mental capacity, and it protects both you and your family if you were ever unable to manage your own affairs due to illness or injury.

Review investment diversification

As your investments grow, check they remain properly diversified across asset classes, regions, and sectors, and that your overall risk level still matches your time horizon and comfort with volatility, rather than reflecting decisions made many years earlier.

Use your tax allowances

Between the £20,000 ISA allowance and the £60,000 pension annual allowance, most people in their 40s have more tax-efficient saving capacity available to them than they actually use. Reviewing this annually can make a meaningful difference over time.

Get a second opinion

With more moving parts than earlier decades, and more at stake if you get it wrong, this is often the point where a conversation with a financial adviser pays for itself, helping you prioritise, avoid gaps, and make sure your plan actually holds together.