Maternity pay

[Maria89]

Hi there,

I’m sorry if this is against any rules or anything but I just feel so overwhelmed and don’t really have anyone I’m able to ask for advice. I’ve just found out I’m 6 weeks pregnant and at nearly 32 I don’t really want to end the pregnancy like I have done before in my younger years. The problem being, we have no family near by, I’m the one with the career and my partner works 2 jobs. We also live in a 1 bed city centre flat that we rent and my partner is in a lot of debt. We also have zero savings.

The reason for posting is, I can’t quite make head or tail of the UK maternity pay guidelines. I currently earn 2000k before tax and want to know if I’d only get £151.20 a week after the first 6 week of maternity? That’s seems incredibly low, whereas if it was around 90% of what I usually take home after tax, it’s be around £380?!

Help would be massively appreciated. I’m in quite a bit of turmoil over this. It’s incredibly sad we’re having to make a choice based on affordability, especially at my age :(

Thank you and please no judgement.

It was a typo, she earns £2000 (£2k) per month gross.

Sorry, and I was still wrong

In all honesty you need to work out your financial position if you are a single parent as you may be far better off on maternity leave and you would get help with nursery fees. If he's bringing in a similar amount to you over two jobs he should be making significant progress on paying off debts, your income is not low combined with such reasonable rent. Are you sure he's not gambling it all?

If you're not confident asking HR, is there anyone at work who has recently been on mat leave that you could ask instead? You wouldn't even have to say you're pregnant. It sounds like you need to be 100% certain of what you'll get before you make any decisions. Good luck!

Thanks Emma :)

And defo a typo ha. Didn’t realise