How do you save up for maternity leave?

[Lissie2015]

I have a 14 month old DD and ideally my DH and I would like trying for baby number 2 in spring next year.

I work full-time, my DH works part-time, his salary pretty much goes all on the two days child care we need while he works. I make much more money than him (his industry doesn't pay well) so it makes sense for me to work while he looks after DD.

When I had DD I worked for a company that fully paid four months of maternity leave so I went back to work after 5 months since we couldn't afford me being on statutory maternity leave for long. The company I work for now doesn't pay anything so I'd only get SML, which would pretty much mean I'd have to return to work almost immediately, which I would really not want.

We'd have to save up at least £15k for me to be able to take 6 months off. Waaah! I'm genuinely baffled how other people do this. Has anyone been in the same situation?

Cut down on your expenditure. If you'd need £15k I assume you're earning at least £45k gross PA so look at where that money is currently going and lower things down. See if you can take a mortgage holiday while you're not working. Can your DH increase his hours while you're on mat leave, or find a second job? Can you pull your DD out of nursery while you're on mat leave? She will be eligible for preschool funding when she turns 3, so if you take a while to get pregnant then she would be eligible for this around the time you are returning to work.

Cut down nursery to one day when your on ML, if your in a part of the country where you'll get her back in.

Most people have one parent working for much of ML, so your plan to drop to just 2 days work per week between the parents may be adding to the difficulty. Can you split the leave with DH, so he gets time off while you go back earlier?

Surely t would make more sense for your DH to take the majority of the leave, while you go back to work?

Start budgeting if you aren't already. TalkInPeace has some great free spreadsheets which could help you see where you can cut back. I use ynab which has changed my life, you get a free month then it's a one-off of £35 which paid for itself within the first day or two. We are fairly careful now but you get used to it quickly and we are far happier for being in control of our money.

Cut back on spending to the bare minimum, would you really need 15k? or could you cancel things like sky or mobile phone contract to save money? decide not to buy any new clothes for 6 months etc

Budget budget budget. I only got SML, cut our expenditure to the bare bones when I got pg. So we started saving when I was about 8 weeks.
I saved £500 per month and ended up with about £6k in savings with what we already had.
It was enough for 6 months - just - with the SMP. But we didn't have a mortgage so if we had had to pay that I'd have had to go back much sooner (DH is SAHD).

You may not wish to, but the shared parental leave arrangements would now mean your DH could take most of the leave off.

Budget budget budget!
Moneysavingexpert has a great list of things you can cut costs on. Making sure you are on best tariffs for electric, insurance etc. rethinking your food budget.
Remember you won't have same travel costs, lunch-out costs and won't need to buy clothes for work while on leave.
Start writing down what you are spending each month. then at the end of the month look at your "wants" spending and decide if they are really necessary. Did you get value for money on that £5 magazine a week? The £3 coffee every day? The £50 handbag?

(I'm a sahm and we are saving for my dp to take 3 months off when we have dc3... We aren't even ttc yet, but trying to be prepared!)