Maternity leave starting September

[difficultlemons]

Anyone else starting on mat leave this year want to join this?

Hoping some people more money savvy than I am have already been through this or are giving it some thought.

I'm after some helpful tips for keeping cost of living down with new baby arriving at the start of autumn/winter season (thinking energy bills).

I'll be on half of what I had with my first as currently working part time, we have recently moved house and have a bigger mortgage to pay.

Life is affordable at the moment and we have some savings already which we've been building on since I discovered I was pregnant.

Any other tips would be most welcome

I'll be going on my second maternity leave in December. Last time was about 5 years ago, but we are lucky to still have lots of the clothes and toys from the first time round.

The best advice i was given was not to buy anything. I had friends with slightly older kids who were delighted to pass on clothes and toys they no longer needed and see them get used. Lots of things are also available cheaply second hand as kids don't get a lot of use out of them before they outgrow them. I got quite a bit through freecycle as well.

The one things i did buy was a joie 360 car seat - one that spun around so i wasn't twisting to lift the baby out - definitely worth it as it lasted the full 4 years.

I did pay for an NCT course, mostly to meet other first time parents. This was a great source of sanity in the early months, and gave me a group of people who were on mat leave at the same time to hang out with.

Where i live there is a sling library and a cloth nappy library so you could try things out (with advice from others) before spending lots of money on something that didn't work for you. We also made use of the storytime in local libraries, where staff would read stories or sing songs to a bunch of kids for free.

I am starting mine in July. Bought lots of stuff second hand, but it's still very expensive with first baby. We will be leaving lots of stuff in case we decide to have 2nd one. From my calculations, my husbands salary and my maternity pay will be enough to live on, but we won't make any savings.

I had an autumn baby last year and only got SMP as well, it definitely wasn't great financially. The energy bills were definitely the biggest kicker over the winter because me, baby and preschooler were inevitably all at home a lot and it was such a cold winter but I didn't want them to be cold.

Minor mitigations we did:

• We kept most things from eldest and used them again. This included clothes even though are kids are different sexes, I wasn't going to buy new for a baby just because of that.
• Were lucky that we got handmedowns of clothes plus a never-used cotbed and new mattress from a friend who had older kids of the same sex as DC2 too. (Meant we didn't have to turf DC1 out of their cotbed, was good to keep change to a minimum for them.)
• Everyone wore very thick layers and bedding overnight so the thermostat was set quite low overnight at least to save on heating bills a little there.
• Minimised use of the tumble dryer, definitely used it less than previous years even though we had more laundry. Just used airers more especially as the heating was basically permanently on when we were indoors anyway so it wasn't that hard to dry clothes especially the kids as they are small anyway so dry quick.
• Cut back on takeaways which was a frivolous spend for me and DH. We were having them weekly so we've cut down to fortnightly after we had DC2.
• Mostly did low-cost activities with the kids - free breastfeeding group at the children's centre, free playgroup at a local church, another local church playgroup which was £4 entry for the three of us, local library, visited my DM who lives locally (she is disabled/in ill-health). I don't drive so we never had travel costs as we walked everywhere.
• Invited other people round for playdates, even if I had to buy a few extra biscuits/snacks for kids it's still much cheaper than meeting in a cafe somewhere or whatever and also again meant no travel costs for us.
• And not really a mat leave thing particularly but started looking for a different job towards the end so managed not to go back to my old one and started a new, better paid one instead!

I see an absolute ton of baby stuff being given away on my local area's Recycle Re-use Facebook group. Bottles, cots, car seats, toys, clothes. Find your local one and spend some time on it. You might be able to get fully kitted out for the first few months from freebies.

"And not really a mat leave thing particularly but started looking for a different job towards the end so managed not to go back to my old one and started a new, better paid one instead!"

This is what I'm planning to do too @WeightoftheWorld . I won't progress in my current workplace and decided I will start looking for new one and better paid once my mat leave is over.

Saved loads during covid by not going to clubs and coffee dates etc so try cutting down on those?

I’d love to join this - starting mat leave at end of august for our 3rd and final baby and am concerned for the cost of things and how we’ll manage 😬

I start Mat leave in December for my second and already freaking out about money. Havent done any actual sums yet but I know it will be tight and our mortgage is up for renewal in the September 😬
Anyone else considering doing a side job while they are off if possible?