One honest 20-minute pass per month beats daily portfolio-staring. This free printable checklist walks the same seven steps every month — refresh your data, then check performance, risk, income, tax allowances and costs — so decisions get made once, calmly, with the numbers in front of you. No email required.
What’s inside
- 7 tick-box sections, timed to 20 minutes — data refresh (~8 min), performance, risk, income, tax & allowances, costs, then a decisions box so conclusions don’t evaporate.
- The thresholds that trigger a closer look — a largest position above 10%, allocation drift beyond 5 points, any holding moving more than 15% in a month.
- UK allowance slots built in — your running ISA £20,000, CGT £3,000 and dividend £500 positions, filled in monthly so the April scramble never happens.
Monthly Portfolio Review Checklist
One A4 page · 7 tick-box sections · 2026/27 UK allowances built in
Download the checklist (free PDF) →Print one per month · no email, no signup
Why monthly — and why a ritual at all
Checking daily feels diligent and works against you: it doubles the pain of every dip and invites reaction. A monthly cadence is frequent enough to catch drift, log dividends while statements are fresh, and track allowances through the tax year — and rare enough that each check happens with perspective. The checklist turns that cadence into muscle memory: same seven questions, same order, every month.
Step 1 leans on exports — our UK broker export cheat-sheet gives the exact clicks for each platform. The risk step pairs naturally with the drawdown simulator (what would a crash cost this mix?), the costs step with the platform fee calculator, and the CGT slot with our CGT record-keeping template. The full system lives in our guide to tracking your investment portfolio.
About this resource
- Tax figures reflect the 2026/27 UK tax year (ISA £20,000 · CGT annual exempt amount £3,000 · dividend allowance £500) and are refreshed each April.
- The checklist provides structure and mathematical context only — not investment advice. Capital at risk.
Monthly is frequent enough to catch allocation drift, log dividends while statements are fresh and track allowances through the tax year — and rare enough to keep perspective. Weekly checks mostly add noise: short-term moves dominate, and reacting to them is how avoidable mistakes happen.
No — the checklist works with a spreadsheet, a tracker, or just your brokers’ apps side by side. It structures the questions, not the tooling. If you track across several platforms, the data-refresh step is where a consolidated view saves most of the 20 minutes.
Yes — one A4 PDF, no email, no signup. Print one per month and keep the completed sheets; a year of them is an honest record of what you decided and why.
The structure works anywhere, but the allowance slots are UK: ISA contributions against £20,000, realised gains against the £3,000 CGT exempt amount, and dividends against the £500 allowance (2026/27 figures, refreshed each April).