Mat pay - is this "good"??

[newmummy21]

Just wanting to gauge what's typical, I guess, as this is the first time I've been on mat leave so I have no idea what's normal.

I usually earn 2,600 net in my job. Currently on mat leave and have lost £800 a month so taking home only 1,800 whilst on mat leave. This is a significant loss to our household income and my partner is having to do a lot of overtime to make up the shortfall. We also had to save like mad during my pregnancy to cover this, so we didn't struggle.

I mentioned this to a friend recently and she said "my god that's amazing mat pay, you have no idea how lucky you are, I had next to nothing... " etc,

So... is losing £800 a month really "amazing" for mat pay??

That is amazing compared to what I got for both my mat leaves (two different business) where I only got statutory so c.£500 a month until 9 months after 90% for first 6 weeks. My salary prior to mat leave was higher than yours so a very big drop

70% of your net pay for 9 months, really? I'm familiar with the NHS mat pay and it's not that generous.

@H328

I think with NHS maternity pay you can elect to have it split equally across your mat leave rather than a larger amount for the first few months and gradually dropping. Is that what you've done OP?

And the childcare is only £25 per day? For a full day? Is it subsidised in some way? I'm also in the North and it's minimum £50 per day here.

Yes that's what I opted for, equal payments.

Not subsidised no, but it should be £650 and that's with the government tax free element taken off.

Sorry ignore my post too!!

If you’re top of a 7 your mat pay should be £17089 total

Divide by 9 months is £1900 gross per month (and you’ll lose around 27% to pension, tax and NI). So take home of around £1400.

If you’re taking a year it works out at £1400 a month gross and just over £1000 a month net.

Something is wrong here.

im in yorkshire and our nursery was £900-£1000 FT i dont believe for a second that a nursery in the NE is almost half that.

@name6785

70% of your net pay for 9 months, really? I'm familiar with the NHS mat pay and it's not that generous.

Me too. OP’s figures are way off (unless she caned the overtime between weeks 17 and 25).

@Cooldryplace

This is the sort of thing no one takes into account when talking about NHS pay.

My BIL just had 2 years sick on full pay and then retired 10 years early on a full pension. OK maybe he could have earned more in the private sector when he was well (he worked in IT) but I don't know anywhere in the private sector that would have paid so welp during his illness.

That's not standard though. Standard sick pay is 6 months full and 6 months half pay, then nothing, so not sure how he's managed 2 years on full pay.

Don't know about the pension, I know there's the provision to pay early if someone is too ill to return to work, but not sure they'll get the full pension that they would have if they'd have paid in for the whole time expected.

@NavigatingAdolescence

If you’re top of a 7 your mat pay should be £17089 total

Divide by 9 months is £1900 gross per month (and you’ll lose around 27% to pension, tax and NI). So take home of around £1400.

If you’re taking a year it works out at £1400 a month gross and just over £1000 a month net.

Something is wrong here.

Eh?!

Firstly I'm not a band 7, I'm higher than that. Secondly I have no idea what you're talking about - payroll have calculating payments as this, I'm not making it up.

@Getyourarseofffthequattro

im in yorkshire and our nursery was £900-£1000 FT i dont believe for a second that a nursery in the NE is almost half that.

Don't believe it all you like! It's true.

with figure you have provided this will £1800 pcm for 6 months followed by SMP

I’m a senior NHS HR manager and I’m telling you those figures look wrong and you could be heading for a big overpayment. (If you supply gross figs I’ll double check them for you. DM if you prefer.)

I'm surprised you didn't look up maternity leave and came across statutory maternity pay, thus realising that your package was significantly above the statutory requirements.
Yes SMP isnt much but we plan and we manage. Depends on how much your partner earns of course and your outgoing. I would normally spend at least 1k in nursery/childcare and some money travelling to work so thats that saved during mat leave. And the food bill is a bit lower as I have time to plan better. So all in all 800 to not work at all isn't too crappy.

I’m in financial services. I got full pay for 19 weeks, stat for 20, then unpaid for 3 months. However I used my carried over holiday allowance after the stat ran out. I had 11 months off, with only 20 weeks of that at stat pay. Luckily I received my bonus during my 20 weeks stat both times, so that helped.

Maternity pay has just gone up to 26 weeks full pay at my company.

We have a work place nursery. I paid fees via salary sacrifice, it was about £650 net for full time, but more like £375/400 after the tax relief. When I was on my second leave, and only on stat, work paid for my nursery fees, so I received 100% of my stat pay. I was quite frankly amazed

Firstly I'm not a band 7, I'm higher than that. Secondly I have no idea what you're talking about - payroll have calculating payments as this, I'm not making it up.

Yeah. Payroll never make mistakes.

I’ve used your net figs to roughly calculate your salary. Came out as £44500 which is top of a 7. 8a isn’t much more so it’s fairly close. It’s still several hundreds of pounds a month adrift from your figures.

If you want me to check the actuals based on your gross salary I’m happy to. I don’t have to, but would as a favour.

(I’m currently dealing with a massive overpayment relating to maternity leave so don’t think it doesn’t happen.)

FT nursery at 500 is an extremely good deal - subsidised by work? Otherwise it's like than 25quids per day which is very low. I'm in the north west in a small town and it's about 40 quids per day around us.

We're ttc at the moment and once the pregnancy sticks (have lost 4 so far) I'd get either 1600/month spread over 12 months or 800/month spread over 24 months, depending on how much maternity leave I'd opt to take.
Our local nurseries in town cost about £200/month for a full time place including food. I'm not in the UK, though.

@Inmypjsagain

OP, really childcare for £500 a month? Or a week? My local nurseries are £2,000 a month 😭

£25 a day for full time hours does seem exceptionally cheap. Ours was £35 a day in the north of England about 5 years ago.

@oblada

FT nursery at 500 is an extremely good deal - subsidised by work? Otherwise it's like than 25quids per day which is very low. I'm in the north west in a small town and it's about 40 quids per day around us.

It's £39 a day or £164 per week. That's £656 a week for FT. I'm deducting the government tax free element at 20% from that.

Which comes to £526 a month

They give you discount for using the full week, basically

So it's equivalent to £32 a day if you use a FT place

well it is in a four week month....

in reality its more like £710.60

and the tax free childcare is a max of £500 per quarter so its gonna be more like £548.30 per month which is yes still very cheap

@newmummy21
My nursery is £31 per day and there is a discount for a full week.
N. Ireland.

It's £39 a day or £164 per week. That's £656 a week for FT. I'm deducting the government tax free element at 20% from that.

More than 4 weeks in a month. It’s £711 per calendar month.