Newly single mum trying to be financially independent

[shazza292022]

Hi ladies,

Going through a break up after being together 15 years. It's tough but I'm trying to focus on me and moving on, and most importantly plan how I'm gonna survive financially.

So we have 2 kids with 1 due anyday now. We have a house with a mortgage. The plan is to live together for approximately a year to coparent and then eventually sell the house. I will walk away with roughly £40k. We aren't physically separating yet as I'm on maternity leave and we have some building regs issues which we have to resolve before we can sell. This is due to be fixed in the spring.

Anyway i have a remote job which pays 28k plus I resell Preloved clothing online. I've been doing that part time since December 2025 so far and has brought in 2k profit this year. I'm deffo going to ramp this up.

I've looked at properties and could afford a small 3 bed in various areas which I will consider. What I want to do is find a 3rd income stream. I do do surveys etc but not alot as I am not able to commit lots of time to it. Again will ramp this up in maternity leave to boost my savings.

Does anyone have any ideas or recommendations of something that can bring in, even if a few hundred extra a month? I desperately want to be financially independent and given I have a year, feel I should use this time wisely to find something to help me feel more secure.

Bank account switching is probably the easiest right now. Although do it now so you give yourself a few months before a potential mortgage application.

Child maintenance from ex

make sure you have documents proving his income for child support without doing anything illegal like logging into his bank under false pretences
separate your finances now and only keep a joint account for paying mortgage council tax, electric etc,make sure you cam log in and check everything is eing paid and nothing is being syphoned off. keep a digital copy of everything proving you sent your half to the account from as far back as possible and send a back up somewhere of the statements once a split becomes a reality going forward it is a business transaction which needs meticulous accounts as if it were for HMRC not "I trust you"
just keep everything straight and save every receipt a digital copy is fine but back up to somewhere

oh and start saving as much as possible if you kids are little cut back at Christmas do not try and proof you love them with gifts.. you can't keep things the same for them on a reduced income so don't try, you can keep things safe

How amicable are things? Is he a spendy person? Is he likely to start dating, or want to spend money on clothes, new car, new tech, etc?
Is there a danger that he will be spending as fast as you earn?

You can't be "split up" mentally and emotionally until you have totally separate finances, which you can do even while both living in the same house. You just act as if you are flatmates / housemates.

Look in detail at separating your finances now. Close any joint accounts. Split any joint savings between you.
Decide whose current account each bill will be coming out of (yours or his), and then the other person transfers their share of the bill.
Same for shopping: whoever does household shopping, the other person gets to see the receipt and transfers their share of the money to the other. Don't add personal stuff like make-up or alcohol into the household shopping as that muddies things.

Also have a rota for housework, like flatmates.
Preferably, eat separate meals and keep separate food cupboards, and a shelf each in the fridge, although you will need to be sensitive about how this is presented to the children (the actual moving out is still half a lifetime away from their point of view), so maybe gloss over it with some excuses they will accept.

Decide which nights are 'his' for being responsible for the children, i.e. in advance of actually moving out you decide if he will be doing 50/50 nights, every other weekend, or some other child contact pattern. On his nights, make yourself scarce: go out and sit in a café reading a book while he does the full evening meal and bedtime routine.
(This is tricky with a newborn as they don't usually have any nights away from their mother and the father's contact time is a few hours in the daytime only).

The advantage of splitting up properly now is that you can then claim child support from him, and Universal Credit as a single parent. You can do this even whilst living in the same house.

Make sure that in that year he doesn't keep his entire paycheck minus half of bills - you should (still?) have a shared finances system where money goes to one pot, and bills are paid out and then any leftover is equally split. You're on mat leave for your joint child, he needs to support more.

I'd also do any studying or uspkilling that you can do now - are there any courses or qualifications you can do? Just to make sure you can increase your earnings potential from your employment. I know it's tempting to try and see what extra pennies you can squeeze from some additional income streams and surveys, but in reality in most cases it will pay a lot, lot more to invest the time and effort into your actual career that awards good pay rises and /or promotions.

Good luck!