To realise I've been entitled and ignorant Re: maternity leave

[AliceScarlett]

I've had this idea in my mind that when I eventually went on maternity leave that DH and I would have less money (obviously), but that it would be OK overall. "Everyone" appears to have children and they manage it! But I worked it out roughly last night after DH and I decided we will start TTC early 2016 and I'm shocked....and annoyed with myself that I'm shocked.

I just assumed that as our household income is about 40k a year and I work for the NHS (which I've heard has good maternity pay) I'd be able to have about a year off...feel silly now. After the first few weeks of 90% pay I'll lose about 1000 a month after tax....I'm the highest earner by quite a long way, how does this even work?

I don't understand how other people manage and I'm SO cross with myself for feeling hard done by.

Can you live on 1700 a month? Or do a lot of women return to work after a few months? I feel like I'm missing a trick here.

Flame away!

As the highest wage earner, it never occurred to me that I would take anything other than the length of maternity leave for which I got full pay. We could afford a PT nanny and, as DH had a flexible, but less well paid job, so he expected to fill in the gaps. It worked fine, but did mean I had no time for anything outside DCs and work.

my combined SMP and OMP means I should only lose about £300/month... Have you taken into account both maternity payments?

I have not! I need to talk to HR because its not very clear.

I would like a year off, but as DH is the lower earner it would make sense for us to share parental leave. But as people have said I might be climbing the walls at 9 months wanting to go back to work.

Very good point's about childcare too. We have decided we only want one child and we have 2 sets of grandparents ready and eager to provide childcare, but that might be 2 days a week (which I'd be very grateful for) but then like you guys said its childcare. I live in Surrey, so I can't imagine it will be cheap.

Reducing mortgage to interest only for a year is a genius idea!

We have 3 and I work full time usually. We had tax credits towards childcare with first 2. With the 3rd we work round each other. The eldest are in school club which is £7 a day then it's £38 a day for the youngest.

We have only just moved on to decent wages, but we always managed it with a mortgage on low wages.

It's also worth pricing up childcare because even if grandparents intend to do it, looking after a non-mobile baby is very different from an active toddler, if grandparents find it hard, you might end up having to pay out. (and if they don't live near you and want to do childcare in their own home, it might be hard with pre-school/school). If youhave to reduce relance on grandparents, going 4 days a week each might be an option to keep both of your careers going as much as possible.

Mortgage to interest only is a good plan if they'll do it!

Once you go back to work, you will lose a large chunk of your income in childcare fees. Plan for that, too.

All the co worker in the NHS I have know take mat for a year spread their money over the 52 weeks and take annual leave. Mostly so they could budget for the whole time they are off and not have the drops in payment as the year goes by. I think it's fantastic to be able to take a year and still have money coming in. With my first I got 6 weeks after a c-section and that was because of the c-section I got disability payments I was in the US.
Dh only got a day off unpaid to take us home and a half day to be with me while I delivered also unpaid then straight into work.
Seeing you are only starting TTC you have plenty of time to save up both money and annual leave.
On a side note I have found most of my co workers go back to work after a year doing less hours, many 30 hours and others even less.

I found that I've barely spent anything on myself whilst on maternity leave so that's given extra money for bills and food etc. We thought I'd definitely have to go back to work but actually we've realised we can manage with just my husbands wage and what we've managed to put away. Your lifestyle will totally change when you have a child!

You will manage as with each baby you get more creative. It hasn't put us off and we still want 1 or 2 more. I will never stop working and will sacrifice things as I need them.

I'm not sure you've done your maths correctly....... I work for the nhs and haven't long returned from mat leave, it was lots better than I expected. I averaged mine over 9 months so for the first 1month I got a higher pay than usual, 2nd was about the same, and then dropped by about £500. If you work in an area with enhanced payments for unsocial hours these are calculated into your payments, also don't forget to add on statutory payments from 6 weeks onwards( I think from then, but definitely from when yor pay drops to half) of £145 per week. I was pleasantly surprised with mine, ( although I did take a full year off so had the last 3 months with nothing which was pretty tight). Hope this helps

I only took 8 weeks as I was self employed, going back a few years 3 months after the birth was common, 6 months about the most people took.
I found I had to save like mad for 12 months before TTC even to cover 9 weeks. I'd agree that as your social life, holidays etc. and other expenditure reduces it may not be as expensive on a day to day basis after the birth as you think.

You'd be surprised how cheap small babies and maternity leave are. Tbh most people don't manage the full year but I believe the majority of couples do 6-9 months and honestly, the vast majority will be having to do it on much worse ML pay than the NHS offer. A few months on SMP is doable for most people. Based on what you've said here, no reason you couldn't be one of them.

Please don't feel stupid, we were the same. I went back after my full pay period. We couldn't live off twice £1700. I now think the only answer is to save a huge amount which will be the plan for next one

oh and another thing to think about, if you have to wear smart clothes for work, you might need new ones if you are going back before a year, body shapes can change dramatically and weight take a long time to shift.

Totally depends on what your outgoings are, but lots of people manage on much less than £1700 a month. Our bills/mortgage etc add up to around 1100 a month and our income is 1600 - leaving 500 for food, transport and day to day living. It's tight but very do-able.

A couple of things people haven't mentioned are:

• when I was pregnant I was knackered, felt like shit and couldn't walk. This significantly impacted on the amount of money I spent well other than a large kindle bill
• You save some money not going to work in transport, constant collections etc

I think though also that 40k joint income isn't particularly high really. Is there a chance if you left it a couple of years this can go up at all if either of you are promoted/ get new jobs? Otherwise surely if it was only your dp working you would qualify for tax credits.... at the moment anyway it isn't something I would want to plan on relying on however.

I think planning age gaps etc is a bit daft, a lot of people leave dc2 until dc1 will be at school before the end of mat leave #2 for this exact reason. I earn FTE of 42k and had about 25 quid left after tax if paying full price for 2 (remember though that there will in the future be more funded time for 3 year olds).

The 25 quid is per day btw.

Buy items from Facebook, eBay and second hand sellers. There is hardly anything you need in the first year. Try and find all free or cheap activities to do with the baby.

I took 2 years out and plan to again this time dependant on contracts etc, DH's salary covered mortgage and bills. We live in London and £1700 would still have been fine for us, but we are very good at budgeting (I was dirt poor as a child - we used to share bath water to save on heating and everything we owned was from a charity shop) I can still go back into that mindset and do a weekly shop for £50-£60 for instance. In fact we ate better when I was off work than we ever did because I made gorgeous soups and veggie meals! I don't have much saved for this little one but I have lots of clothes/toys and pram left over so I am banking on that. Our lifestyle did change but that's also what comes with kids and we made it work. Good luck

Like misschatter says, eBay/Facebook etc is also key. Plus we spent very little on clothes in the first year as we were given so many gifts. The pram needn't cost you £800. Ours was £200 second hand which we used until we splashed out on a £100 maclaren. (Make use of toys r us /John Lewis price matches)

I saved up and paid myself £1000 per month, still struggled and at end of Mat leave was brassic.

The most I have spent on a pram is £100. The one for dc3 was only £30. I paid £15 for the cot.

You do get a lot of clothes gifts, but after that I just buy bundles. You can get an entire wardrobe for a particular age for £15, then they grow out of it and you move to next size up. This will be more than enough until they start school.

I was lucky to have 4 months full pay and that's what I took, but then, you have to factor in child care costs, and that loss of £1000 may not seem as bad.

Before TTC can I suggest you look at the costs of childcare too? A lot of people are taken by surprise.

Also don't forget you will be:

a) building up holiday
b) paying less tax and may get some back

Some friends of mine paid X amount per month in to a savings account and then when on maternity leave paid X back from the savings.

Have you looked in to shared parental leave?

Also check, the NHS used to take contributions for pension etc at full rate even when you were on Stat Mat pay. I don't think they do now but do check.

Also remember the NHS has generous sick leave so if you are feeling exhausted towards the end if your Dr signs you off you will get full pay. The same when you come back, my old boss was due back from maternity leave but phoned in sick that day so went on to sick leave at full pay - do check this though but if something happens like you have a CS then you should be able to swap to sick pay.

You can also take your accrued holiday, so come back on 1st June, but take 4 weeks anual leave and not actually return until July.

As for living on £1700 a month, yes I could.

1700 pcm is the equivalent of almost £30 k p.a. I'm fairly sure lots of people live in that.
We saved six months salary before pregnancy, so if I wasn't able to go back to work we had a cushion.
Be very careful with grandparent care. Unless they have the same ideas about parenting as you do, avoid! I have read far too many horror stories on MN, often relating to baby feeding ( chocolate etc) and sleeping. Also, most nurseries give you a better price for full-time places than for four days or part time.

I was the higher earner and went back to full-time work when my first DC was 6 months old. I'd had 9 months maternity leave by then - 3 before, 6 after. When I costed out the childcare it seemed better all round to have a nanny come in each day: not much more expensive and meant I could leave on-time for work. 2 other things- check that your calculations include any tax refunds, especially if you are off work at the end of the tax year. (PAYE Tax is calculated monthly on the basis you will earn the same each month, if you earn less later in the year recalculate based on your total tax year earnings.) The other thing, as you are a high earner how will a year off impact your career prospects?