Affording maternity leave. How are you planning on affording it?

@Tobebythesea thanks. I assumed I would flip to the tax child care option though? May need to look!

My leave will be basic parental leave (so our version of SMP) which is $695 a week before tax (it is taxed)
My income is $850 before tax a week so we'll be fine with the parental leave plus DH's income (main earner) The parental leave runs for 18 weeks only which is on the generous side but I'll be taking 6 months. Dh can support us though, but we are saving. We've been saving for a year so have quite a bit already but we just need a sticky bean now.

Jellibabie - might be worth looking into if your employer does childcare vouchers now? The cut off is April and then the scheme is shut.

That’s quite a good deal. I get the legal minimum, 6 weeks. My sister works at a university and gets 6 months full pay!

Started saving now as we would like to keep our other child in Nursery to keep her place but to also give me a break. Only having 8 months this time rather than 12 due to costs. 15 ‘free’ hours kicks in in April thank goodness just in time for when I go back to work. My husband gets 6 months full so I would like to do shared leave but husband thinks it will wreak promotion chances. Have you considered shared leave?

I saved for a year before bfp to cover 1 year off - DS is 4 months old. but its still not easy as theres always the unpredictables - DHs car broke last month which cost £400 to repair. I am also worried about childcare costs shudders at mere mention

Sandysmam sadly I have no choice. I have my own business and it wouldn’t sustain me having longer than 3 months off. I would lose everything I’ve spent the last 10 years building up.
Support for self employed woman having babies is absolutely rubbish so unfortunately, it’s something I have to just get on with.

SMP only here (15 years with the company!) though I do get my car allowance also. Got pregnant first month of trying so only had 9 months to save, but got plenty put to one side (less wine and holidays while pregnant!). What you can save for anyone will completely depend on how much disposable income you normally have; I will have enough to cover everything but won't have made any mortgage overpayments or saved anything towards my next car. If I run out of money towards the end DH will need to cover more, at the expense of mortgage overpayments.
Sounds ridiculous but at 3 months I'd have needed to pay for new work clothes before I could go back! Determined that won't be the case after a year (or even 6 months!).

I am not total agreement with Sandysmam I was completely physically unable to go back to work at 3 months. Not just the sleep deprivation but actually physically and mentally unwell. I'd have been fired.

Lalalalalaland I also did the splitting across 12 months thing. It actually meant I had money left at the end of may leave, and bought a new work wardrobe with it.

I think those who are waiting for your first bfp or who are pregnant for the first time and saying you need to go back after 3 months...take heed. I was no way physically or mentally ready to go back to work after 12 weeks. Not saying this is the case for everybody but for some, birth and having a baby really is a huge physical and mental feat that needs time to recover from. Save save and save as much as you can in case you need some extra time, you might find you are very poorly if you push it too soon. You don’t need to spend £800 on a pram, get a £200 one and save the rest.

I added up what I would receive in total and split it across the 12 months so that we didn't end up completely broke at the end. It worked really well as we've cut back across the year. We didn't save anything before I went on maternity leave as we'd just got married and bought a house so there were lots of outgoings and we couldn't afford to save as well.

I was only on statutory (had be employed 12 months before getting pregnant to qualify for 'enhanced', which is the same as yours OP.

We saved. At the time DH was at uni and I was the main earner and we didn't know what salary DH would get once he was in work. I saved 7k in the 9 months I was off plus we had some time before I got pregnant. I didn't want to have to scrimp on mat leave and wanted to be able to go out for coffee and cake!

I have a good package and for 7 months of my Mat Leave (which I’m currently on) I get about £1,100 each month. For the first month of my Mat Leave and what will be my last week I receive about £600. This is because my Maternity Allowance over a 39 week period was calculated and then decided by 9 to give me a set payment each month.

For my first pregnancy my Mat Leave was also good but not as good (different job) but whilst I was pregnant me and DH put aside £400 a month so by the time the baby was born we had about a £3’000 fund to allow me to have two more months off once my Mat Payments had stopped.

With DD we both saved £500 a month each from finding out I was pregnant. By the time mat leave came around we had £10k in savings. So along with that and SMP we managed okay. I took 12 months mat leave and 1 month annual leave.

We have savings already now but when we get pregnant again we will probably save similar amounts in preparation. It meant I didn’t go back to work in a load of debt.

I saved most of my bonus from the year before I had my baby. I was actually pregnant during that year but had a miscarriage so it didn't get spent. Saved my bonus from the year baby was born. Bonuses are between 2k and 3k.

I was very lucky with my maternity package, my employer pays for 18 weeks at various levels but it works out to about 12 weeks full pay. They also included my bonus when they did the calculation so it was based in a higher income than usual.

My parents helped out and we just lived fairly frugally. Now it's childcare fees that are biting us!

I think I'll be ok for about 6 months with a mixture of employment benefits and SMP. But at the moment I'm saving £500 each month into a savings account and will hopefully use this to top up for a few months (I've been saving this each month since we started TTC and I've been trying for 8 months, and will have at least another 8 months to save if I got a BFP this month, which is looking unlikely). Luckily we will still be able to afford the mortgage on just my husbands salary for a few months, but it wont be ideal.

I own my own business as a personal trainer so I'm saving like crazy! Once I have a baby (if I ever get a bfp 🙄) I'll probably be going back to work within 3-4 months as I'll only have statutory for the time I'm off

I am overseas but I get 2 months full pay and then that's it. My maternity leave is over. So I'm taking 2 months maternity leave, plus an extra month which is all my annual leave for the year. Honestly, I think it's a pretty good package that you've got.

I am in the fortunate position my employer offers 6 months full pay, 3 months statutory then 3 months unpaid.

You accrue bank holidays when on ML so add them on the end and then can transfer over any AL unused to the next calendar year onto the end of Mat leave.

Saved to cover big bills like car finance throughout pregnancy and lucky to get 6mnth full pay + 3 months stat so had a little extra time to save.

Also had been overpaying on the mortgage for a couple of years as fixed rate interest decreased- means eating into the extra equity I had built up but I don't have to pay the mortgage when on stat/0pay.

I get the child benefit paid into a separate account and I'm trying not to touch it it until I stop getting paid. Another thing I've done is stock up on things like toiletries whilst they are on special offer (Superdrug seem to have the best offers) so I hopefully won't have to buy much in the months I don't get paid. Another small thing is I try to buy as much stuff in places where I have a loyalty card. Saving all the points again for when I no longer get paid. Just small things but will hopefully ease some of the pressure.

I've changed the tariff on the utilities because naturally spending more time at home has made the bills increase and cancelled anything non necessary so contact lenses (I'll wear my glasses) glossy-box etc. I also try and get DS clothes in the next size up whenever there's a sale on ( I already have next years Christmas jumpers bought as they were £2 in Tesco).

That's a good package! I get statutory only and I work in a skilled profession. Unfortunately it's male dominated so crap maternity.

I've saved. 9 months is a long time. I've put aside as much as I could and I have enough to pay for a year off.

I only had statutory with DS, we saved for a year beforehand. Package is a bit better this time round plus another year of squirrelling away, no holiday this year though.

I'm not sure because both of us are on a low income and mine will drop even lower but we'll manage somehow! People have done throughout the years and survived on much less I expect.

@OurNextAdventure oh dear that doesn't sound good.

This has made me feel more grateful for what I get. I work at a govt dept and am 6 months into my leave and it has only just dropped to 50% pay plus statutory.

Sort of winging it and using credit cards to be honest-got a crap mat leave package but am on reasonably decent pay so will go back fulltime after a year and pay it back