Happy to be told I should have researched it better but been really surprised by my maternity pay. I asked for a forecast before going off. This is my first month on maternity leave (week 1 of November was annual leave) and the forecast for the month was only about £100 short of my normal salary, which seemed right to me given that it’s 90% of pay at first.
It turns out the forecast is an ‘estimate’ and doesn’t actually look at the calendar of how the months are configured…
Got my payslip through and I am nearly £500 short. I rang payroll and they were really helpful to be fair, and explained it’s correct because maternity pay is calculated weekly Mon-Sun, and the last week of November doesn’t count because the Sunday it ends on is December 1st.
This means I have had 1 x week of annual leave pay and 2 x weeks of 90% maternity pay.
As it happens it won’t leave me too short because I’ve had my baby in the last fortnight so we haven’t been spending and I can’t foresee loads of spending with a tiny newborn. Next month I will get 5 weeks of 90% pay which will mean I have more than if I was just working full time… sure the tax man will have fun!
Is this common knowledge to everyone? I assumed that because I was salaried that pay would just be as they said, not done weekly. Tricky to not feel deflated as next pay day won’t be until a couple of days before Christmas 🙁