Maternity pay

[nadiamumoftwo]

No but really, how do people afford to go on maternity??! I’m 28 so beginning to think about babies and the future and I just can’t fathom how anyone survives on SMP? I get 3 month full pay (luckily) but after that it’s SMP. I am a teacher in Scotland and all my outgoings as pretty much accounted for. Do people save up for a year before going for it to ensure they have a “wage” for a year?

[quote qualitygirl]@nadiamumoftwo do it whatever way you like. But being on mat leave is not a burden for you to bear alone that's all I'm saying.

I work, I'm independent, I have my own money and I'm married and share bills it is possible to do it all at the same time...

But yes in answer to your question...you save. I saved over 6k for my mat leave and my dh saved similar too! [/quote]
We had about 6k in total saved but did not go on holiday etc (covid didn't allow us anyway).

I saved a bit, and didn’t spend much on top of my bills. Babies are actually pretty cheap, especially if you breastfeed. You will also receive child benefit which will take you to nearer £700. I also did a few KIT days spread out which topped it up too. We cut back as much as possible then used accrued holiday to enable me to take off nearly a full year each time (I’ve got 3).

We saved and cut down on as much as we possibly could before ttc so it wasn't as much of a shock to the system when my pay did drop.
We dropped down to one car to save on payments, insurance etc, took out a sim only phone contract and saved another £60 a month, budget as much as possible.
I'm now a sahm and we manage to live off one wage, it's tight and we've made a lot of sacrifices but 100% worth it.

@ablisha yes 🙌 we just stayed in a baby bubble...we went camping once or twice once dd was 6months and that was it. Cheap and cheerful.

Yes, you save. You can start now by saving each month the amount the childcare will cost - about £1000 between the two of you. Just so you get used to it. Then use it for your maternity leave.

It sounds like your outgoings are quite high if between you you pay £1900 for household bills and that isn't including personal bills like cars etc. I think that might be where you struggle if you don't have any savings, is there anywhere you could cut down on your outgoings?

I'm currently on Mat leave with our first baby, he's 8 months. I was self employed so only get maternity allowance which is the same as ssp but without the 90% pay for 6 weeks. We manage because my partner has a good wage and we had some savings. I'm pregnant with baby 2 (unplanned) I would have been due back at work in May but baby 2 is due in July so I'll be staying off but it means I won't get any maternity pay for this baby so we have to do it on partners wage alone. Luckily, we've brought our outgoings down as much as we reasonably can right now so will be fine on just my partners wage.

People manage either by saving, making sacrifices or having low monthly outgoings

Scottish teacher here. 2 kids, one summer born, one winter. I lost out on the paid summer holidays with the first.

Be clever about your due date. My winter baby I returned to work the last week of June so I was back on payroll for the summer holidays. So I worked 4 days then got paid for 7 weeks off and returned properly in August.

The holidays thing is a nightmare. You accrue some, but you can only take them at certain times. My local authority let me take a lump sum payment instead of the time. Different councils work differently, I'm top of the central belt. I was able to still do SQA marking during mat leave, if you're secondary. That was a great boost.

Finance wise, it would do you good to have a few months wages behind you for maternity pay. 600 a month doesn't go far, so be really clear about how you will work this with your partner. I spent loads on baby classes and lunches out which you really need to get out of the house some days, it was a necessity for me but my then husband didn't quite get that.

Work out your minimum budget now and work toward that with a clear picture of what your partner is willing to contribute. Then you'll know how long it will take you to save.

I don’t want to get married and also don’t want to combine finances, I like being independent and having my own income

I would think carefully about this with regard to having children together & draw up a plan - it's great you are thinking about it in advance. Of you are having a child together I don't think it's unreasonable that your partner should share the extra expenses and help make up the shortfall in maternity pay - it shouldn't only be you saving for it.

I'd also suggest looking at some of the legal benefits of marriage - if things weren't to go to plan and you had a child with disabilities, or suffered a serious birth injury, you might need to reduce your working hours and may appreciate that protection. Additionally, I wanted my DH as my next of kin as I trust him to make better medical decisions than my mother & I wanted him to have automatic paternal responsibility to consent to any treatment our baby might need, in the event that I was unable to do so.

Teachers generally try to time maternity leave so that they return to work on the first day of the summer holidays so as to get paid through them.

A friend of mines is the bread winner and both times she planned a child, she saved 6k. I think her maternity pay package was better than yours but still not enough to make ends meet. My SMP was exactly what I was earning at the time, so no loss for me. Dh has always been the breadwinner.

Scottish teacher here. It's very confusing working out holiday entitlement when on mat leave especially when factoring in school closure days. This guide might be useful, different local authorities might split the holidays vs school closure days differently but the jist is the pretty much the same.

www.falkirk.gov.uk/employees/forms/docs/maternity/Teachers%20Maternity%20FAQs.doc?v=202004241419

Yep, just savings and IMO when you have a child and are on maternity leave, stuff about who puts what into joint account should stop. I didn't think about 'my share' of bills. There were bills that needed to be paid and we just pooled money in the JA to make sure they did! Of course DH had less spends as a result but so did I. Just the way it goes!

Cut right back on what you spend, it sounds like there are probably things like a nice car and decent phones in there. Then save like mad for a couple of years. I've also known a lot of people go part time with one as it can put you down a tax bracket so you don't lose as much as you'd think after the childcare costs or both do compressed hours so you only need 3 days. We had ours 3 years apart, used savings to cover the patch with 2 in nursery at the same time (the 30 hours free doesn't half the cost), and just about managed to keep our standard of living the same but we're still holding off until they're out of nursery to get a bigger mortgage.

I seriously would not be TTC with someone when the two of you still refer to your respective halves of the bills.

It's sensible to save up and plan for it, but if you have an unplanned pregnancy (I did while on birth control and had no savings), then you'll still find a way to manage. I squirreled away as much money as I could while pregnant, cut as many expenses as I could etc. My partner lost his job when I was in my third trimester which couldn't have been any worse timing and we still managed using what I saved while pregnant and my SMP with universal credit top up. I also got the £500 sure start grant which is £1000 in Scotland I believe. You should be eligible for UC to top up your maternity pay, if you're not then you must be fairly financially secure anyway.

The whole prospect is very scary, you do think well how am I going to cope, surely we can't survive on that etc... but you do find a way and the reduced income is only temporary. And I found lots of people wanted to give me things for the baby, people always want to clear out second hand baby stuff as it takes up so much space and babies grow so fast. Can buy lots of secondhand baby stuff for cheap as well, most hardly used if at all.

My partner goes not earn enough to pay my half of our bills as well as his own bills like car / phone etc and day to day living costs.

Phone bills should be cheap enough to not even be worth a mention tbh. Mine is £13 a month. His must be significantly more for it to impact on how much he can contribute towards the bills while you are on maternity leave. When planning financially for a child, these are the exact types of expenses you need to cut down on.

You're making a rod for your own back if you have children without being married or combining finances.

It's not about losing independence, it's about both parents sharing the impact of having a child as much as possible.

If you're worried about the cost of maternity leave, how are you going to afford the cost of childcare?

The suggestion to try to live on the income you would have during maternity leave (or when your costs increase due to childcare) is a good one, this has the added advantage of freeing up money to save for when your income reduces. It might take more than a year to save for each period of maternity leave, but you probably also need to see what costs you can cut, eg when will the car payments stop and can you just keep the cars you have?

Unless you have lots of spare money, you might not be able to afford maternity leave and costs of having children plus cars that require ongoing payments and higher end mobile phone contracts.

Another thing to consider is both of you taking parental leave and/or flexing your hours if you do have a child to share the burden and possibly reduce childcare costs, eg if you both work 4 days a week you might only need 3 days paid childcare.

Childcare costs are much worse than trying to live on smp and tbh 🙈🙈

Savings
Partner (if there is one) covers the shortfall. They are saving on having to pay for childcare or take time off themselves.
Shared Parental Leave (if there is a partner).
Go somewhere cheaper for shopping.
Add holiday on to mat leave
2nd hand clothes
Batch cooking cheap meals

It will be good practice for when you have nursery fees to pay

It's not about losing independence, it's about both parents sharing the impact of having a child as much as possible

I agree with this.

Of course he would pay more during maternity but realistically we need to save up the equivalent or thereabouts of the wages I’ll lose over 8/9 month. this sums it up really

Yep it's horrendously expensive!
We saved for both maternity leaves (I'm on my second one now). I do get 6 months full pay so very lucky so we saved for the second half of mat leave the first time.
This time we had to save up for nursery fees for my first son while I'm on mat leave.
You do get some form of help either 15 or 30 hours free childcare when your child turns 3. Also check out tax free childcare if you're eligible - that will apply as soon as you put the baby in nursery.
But it's getting out of control. We've just had a 5% hike in line with inflation announced at our nursery. That with all the other rises in bills means the last few months of mat leave this time wil be tight.
My children have a 3 year age gap and one of the reasons is finances!

You do not need to be married and you do not need to combine finances (honestly what is this 1950?)

Yes it's nice if it happens that way but it's not a barrier. I'd start trying and saving at the same time whilst reducing outgoings. You have no idea how long it will take you to get pregnant and 'scheduling your due date' around school holidays is unrealistic - it just doesn't happen that way.

Of course you have to try and prepare as much as you can and is reasonable but if you let all of the childcare costs scare you, you'd never do anything. Put it this way. If you waited a few years then found it difficult to conceive later on.. would you regret all those years you prioritised saving over actually trying for the baby?

Scottish teacher here, I'm with GCC. You do accrue holidays but not all school holidays count - some are school closure days. HR gave me a table showing which was which. My DD was born at the start of October. I worked until the September weekend, went on mat leave then returned to payroll something like mid may time but used my holidays to take me to the summer holidays. This meant I had full pay over the summer holidays. I didn't actually are back into school until the inset in August.

But yes mat pay is tough. Save, save, save. And there's no my moneyyour money - it's family money. We, as a family, put away what we'd spend on nursery fees for the duration of my pregnancy and used a wee of that to top up each month. We also used mortgage/car payment holidays and such. Ultimately you muddle through

Maternity pay is rubbish (although granted better than other places!) so yes we saved for a few years prior to having our children as it was important to me to have the full year off. We also waited until our eldest was eligible for the 3year funding before having another which reduced the 1k nursery bill substantially.