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

[OurNextAdventure]

For all that are TTC or those who have already got your BFPs.....

How are you all planning on funding maternity leave? Is everyone saving now and if so how much is everyone trying to save?

When I'm lucky enough to get a BFP (one day soon I hope), my employers maternity package is pretty shocking so (6 weeks full, 6 weeks half, 27wks SMP....then nothing).

We are trying to save what we can but I am nervous about the cost of having a baby (mortgage and bill payments I mean as I'm sure you can actually get by with minimal "stuff")

Just curios about what everyone else is doing when we know that if all goes well we will be taking an extended time off work.

Sorry if I'm being nosy....hope you all won't mind me asking; maybe lots of others are wondering too?!? Xx

Yeah, so that's actually not a bad package.

Statutory is 90% for 6 weeks then max £140 a week until week 39, then nothing.

That's not to say it's not difficult. In my experience, most save a bit beforehand, and agree a way of sharing expenses with the father

Hi there I'm on maternity leave at the moment but luckily on a good maternity package.

If I were in your position I'd be asking your employer when they last looked at their maternity policy to see whether there's any possibility of it being improved upon.

I’m worrying about my maternity leave. Baby due end of July and I’m being made redundant first week in May. So I’m going to be using up a lot of my mat leave before baby comes and I worry I’ll need to find another job before I really would have wanted to. That said, a lot of my expenses will go down and my DH is on a good wage which should be able to support us. I am also very thankful that my mat leave will still be covered by my employer, as if I was a few weeks earlier in my pregnancy I would not have been entitled to it in my redundancy package.

@eastlondoner I couldn't agree more! The sad thing is this is my employer's "extended package" which has only just been introduced. For the industry I work in and similar employers it's shocking!!! Hence my pondering really! X

That sounds like a fairly good Maternity package actually.

I only get Statutory, despite working for my very large healthcare company for 3 years.

My DH will be covering the mortgage and bulk of the bills. I will put in £400 a month. That leaves around £100 + child benefit of £80 which should tide me over for bits and bobs.

I can only afford to have 3 months off work. We will take a mortgage holiday for 2 months.

I only qualify for maternity allowance. No 90% for 6 weeks at £140 ish thereafter.
I’m only taking 3 months leave.

I'm bricking it about mine (due same time) and I'm actually on a very good package (much better than my previous employers, which proudly stated they offered 100% for the first 6 weeks, rather than 90% - cheers).

We are saving money in unexpected ways - we aren't really going on holiday this year, because I'm basically grounded from April

I'm on the same package as you, and I'm 3 months into my maternity leave. We saved our arses off from finding out I was pregnant, and hopefully have enough saved to make ends meet despite the drop in income until September, so 10 months in total including a month annual leave. It's going to be tight though.

I have friends who work in the civil service who get 6 months full pay...lucky bastards!

I'm self-employed so will only get maternity allowance. Working from home, though, and being entirely flexible with hours and workload means I can probably go back to work sooner than I might otherwise.

My partner's salary covers our bills thankfully, although only just.

I got 8 weeks full pay then dropped to half pay. I went back to work after 4 months (3 months mat leave and one month annual leave).

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

@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.

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.

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.

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.

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).

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.

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 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 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 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!

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 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.

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!