Maternity Pay & Savings

[LittleLamb93]

How much did you save before going on maternity leave? Was it sufficient? Do you think I’ve saved enough?

I am the higher earner in our household and when I go on maternity leave, I’ll lose a significant amount of money. I plan on taking the entire year so I have saved the difference between my current salary and the amount I will receive in maternity pay.

My outgoings are significantly less than my earnings but there will be all sorts of costs to account for such as the pram, cot and I’m sure I’ll want to get out and about over that year too.

I appreciate this is a “how long is a piece of string” type question but your educated guess will be more accurate than my uneducated one!

Im the higher earner. I had my part of the bills covered before going on leave both times, so I managed to save on leave.

Buying stuff before really depends on how much you want to spend - id you want to spend £300 on a travel system you can, similarly Ive seen them for over £2k!! i think with my first we spent about £2000 on travel system, spinny car seat, next to me cot, the bigger cot, clothes, my maternity wear, nursery furniture, etc. I would say we did get carried away. It was good quality though - with my second i genuinely didnt spend a penny (other than nappies) until he was about 6 months! You can get a lot on marketplace and vinted, if you want to keep costs down.

I managed to save my spending money (and more due to no commuting costs), for the second half of the year while i was on full pay for the first six months. I budgeted £500 per month spending - lunches, classes, clothes for us both (and i didnt spend it all, not nearly!).

I would say your food shop is going to go up £30ish per week on average in the early days (nappies, lotions, potions, wipes, formula, weaning food, breast pads, pads, etc - all the allergens can add a bit on). Shop around for nappy and wipe deals.

my heating bill went up both times.

Big outgoing to factor in now are childcare deposits and the first months bill, i unknowingly didnt factor it in fully during my first mat leave and had a shock! Had it sat there with baby two

it’s worth sitting down and plotting what you have coming up/spend in a month, putting aside a realistic birthdays/christmas pot. You’re going to want your haircut at some point. Have a look on some websites and write down the sum of 7 vests, 7 babygrows, 3 outfits at each baby size. How much baby sensory and a costa is twice a week. That sort of thing. You will spend less, in my experience and friends, but its helpful having a range/trajectory written out.

For UC check out the entitled to website. You can enter your salaries as they will be at the time and it will tell you if you can get anything.

Don't forget to claim child benefit too.

That’s probably sufficient. You will be able to contribute to household bills etc as before and have spending. However your OH should be contributing too. Baby costs should be half each (whilst you’re the higher earner your income will be less for your maternity year). I tried to do the same as you and off for the full year but maybe didn’t save up full cost of difference (I had savings elsewhere but didn’t want to use those). TBH cannot remember but how much I spent but I did need to cut back as I didn’t use other savings. If you’ve saved up the full difference, you’ll be fine.

It also depends if you want to buy new for everything baby related or not. I was happy to get a mix of new and second hand. I got loads of second hand clothes from relatives and friends. They wear stuff for such a short time that second hand stuff can be as good as new. You also don’t need to buy absolutely everything for a baby! Family and friends also probably give you a fair bit of money and/or gifts (toys / clothes) too. Charities and vinted too. There’s loads of free or cheap activities with babies. Baby massage, baby groups, etc. Then you’ll just do stuff at home and just go for walks etc anyway or can make friends with other mums at baby groups and have coffee mornings etc. Some of it might depend on what time of year your baby’s born and the weather etc.

I didnt save a penny, but i did have 12months fully paid with both my DC.

This is a fab response! Thank you and I really appreciate you taking the time to set this out clearly 😊

Wow! Thats amazing. I’ve never heard of full pay during mat leave!

The nhs may pay is 8 weeks at full pay, then 18 weeks (up to 6 months) at 1/2 pay plus SMP, then 3/12 of SMP only then unpaid.

in comparison to my friends - it was one of the worst. Most people had a longer full pay period.
it’s touted as being excellent but in reality many private jobs at the same experience level have massively upped their packages.

I agree. Many of my friends have had six months on full pay. My salary is already well below what I’d earn in the private sector, so while the pension provision is good, the rest isn’t particularly generous.

Re shared parental pay, your DH should check out his work policy as might be surprisingly generous, a lot of places offer the same amount of full pay for shared parental as for maternity (though sadly if he works for the NHS too then the total entitlement is shared between the couple, so a bit rubbish if you both do).

We found lots of our big expenditure pre baby (going out for dinner, holidays) dropped off almost completely, which made up for my maternity leave coffee/lunch/£15 bring-your-baby gym class habit.

Money saving tips I haven’t seen mentioned yet:
join your local WhatsApp group, particularly if you can find a parent-specific one. We got so much great free and cheap stuff off there, must have saved £1000s. And if you’ve got a children’s centre near you check it out. I found their stay and play sessions more flexible and relaxed than the private baby music/sensory classes where you have to book a whole term’s sessions and then baby is either asleep or screaming for 55 of the 60 minutes, every week for eight weeks.

I can just imagine his boss telling him not to bother coming back if he tried asking for shared parental leave 😂 I do think it’s a lovely idea though, and something to seriously consider!

Saving up to cover for the loss of income during maternity leave will be more than enough. Yes you will spend £2k on pram, cot, car seat, clothes etc but you will also save a lot on not commuting and not buying lunch every day.

It's 8 weeks full pay, 16 weeks half pay, 16 weeks SMP. I got my trust to add it all up and split it into 12 payments. They're not totally equal due to tax and deductions but still good. I had around £2k per month for the majority, then around £1,200 ish in the last month.

I would seriously consider it, it’s completely changed our lives. We did 3wks together at the start, then 3m on my own, then 1m together, then 2m on my own, then 2m together, then he did 3m on his own (I had the last two weeks off of this to help settle into nursery, which was great as during the settling in period we could have a lunch date together just the two of us!!). We made the most of Christmas and Easter breaks for joint leave. It was so lovely having the time off together and we went on lots of holidays!!

It also made the transition going back to work easier as when he went back I did the childcare, and when I went back he was doing childcare, so gave us time to get used to it before we used a nursery.

Yes it continued to pay for general bills too. Id definitely recommended getting as much as possible second hand /market place / vinted. As everything you buy for babies is used for such a small amount of time and you can pick up so much practically new.

My mat pay sounds very similar to yours - I think I had 6 weeks full pay, 18 weeks half pay and the rest was SMP.

I’m also the higher earner, so I only took 9 months maternity leave. We paid for big baby purchases (pram etc) out of our joint savings.

I saved £4k, of which I spent about £2.5k - I still contributed to the household as much as I could and it was my money that covered all the things like baby clothes etc.

I have a membership to a local attraction which was a godsend to have somewhere I could go that was nice and felt “free” (think big gardens to walk around in) because I pay the membership annually so it was paid up before I went on mat leave - if there’s something like that near you it’s something I’d recommend. Also if you say coffee is your weakness, maybe get yourself a giftcard to one you particularly like so again it feels free at the time. Don’t be shy about asking for useful, practical gifts from people who might want to buy you things as well, and reach out to friends/family who might have some of the things you need (I got a lot of baby stuff from my sister and one of my friends who were done with it).

Good luck!

Very good idea! I often get gift vouchers for coffee shops so I’ll make sure to ask for that in lieu of gifts. I’m really hoping I’ll get away with not having a baby shower but if people insist, I’ll ask for coffee vouchers instead of baby stuff 😂

All jokes aside, I have a NT membership so I’ll keep up with that so me, the dog and the baby can have some lovely walks.

Thank you to everyone who has made some wonderful suggestions and given me some reassurance.

I particularly love the shared parental leave idea and have started doing my research on this. DH’s boss can be a difficult character to put it mildly and I wonder whether he could refuse the leave and/or terminate his contract? Small scale business - there is no HR!

Haha I also didn’t want a baby shower - so I ended up with 3 surprise ones organised by different groups!

That is my worst nightmare 😂

I sound so ungrateful but the thought of being sat in a circle of family and friends pinning the nappy on the baby makes me shiver!

I will accept a small gathering of very close family and friends for a spa day though 🧖‍♀️