Self Employed Breadwinner becoming a Mum

[babyready]

It's quite a narrow category, and I was wondering if there are any other women out there who are both self employed and the main breadwinner in their family unit? I'm almost 18 weeks into my first pregnancy, and now it's feeling more real, I'm starting to get anxious about the financial, and logistical realities!! My partner is wonderful, but also self employed and less financially stable than me (as in, excellent with finances, but less earning-power and less dependable income stream). Does anyone have any success stories, or indeed warnings, from the other side?!

What information are you after? Self-employed covers a whole spectrum of people doing a wide variety of jobs paid in different ways with partners who aren't necessarily self-employed.

If you have to claim maternity allowance takes ages to be paid. Make sure you do it as soon as you are able.

Yes me, PM me if you want to chat about it. I'm a director so I don't get leave and couldn't afford to take leave really anyway.

In total I probably took about a week off, although I had to briefly to some work in the postnatal ward. Obviously I don't recommend this. My husband and I tried to do 50/50 care after that (him basically covering my work time), and my son went into nursery part-time at 10 months. It wasn't easy but we got through it.

My best advice would be to try to offload/ outsource now or plan a break with your clients if this applies to you (you don't have to tell them why). Take advantage of friends/ family who want to coo over baby to get some rest and do the admin that you can't pass on.

Don't do as I did and tell yourself you can work while baby's asleep so do conference calls during nap time. This rarely works out IME.

Speak with your accountant ASAP about pay as well. If you are a director, you can technically pay yourself whatever you like during leave. It's important to check what benefits you can get because it depends on salary, and for many self employed people (particularly company directors) salary is minimal. My accountant says that he can do the planning once he has the MATb1 form (IIRC you get this at 20 weeks).

I was planning on going self employed when I finish my degree. Which is mid may, I'm due end of may. 🙄 So I have no huge experience in the area.
However, I have just set myself a few months with no bookings, but have one day a week where I will still work on admin and promotions and me and my partner are saving as much as we can to cover us for those few months. He works and brings in a good wage but mine would have doubled our income.
Depending on what you do, you could always drop down to part time if you are full time even if it's just for a few months or what you would class as "maternity leave". Use all the resources you can possibly get hold of.

Good point about accountant - will get on to them ASAP. I also didn't know that as company director I can pay myself maternity, and then presumably that is partially reimbursed by HMRC to company? I am planning 3 months absolute break, resuming light duties for 2 after, and then I have a project that means I will have to go full time for a month, but after that I can drop down to part time for another couple of months.

I am hopeful about getting support from the new grandparents, but I just don't want anyone to feel taken advantage of, you know?

Realistically, in those first 10 months, how many continuous hours did you get physically away from baby? I'm thinking logistics of feeding especially. Unfortunately my job requires me being physically in a place, I'm trying to guess if that could be possible. I suppose if/how long I am able to breastfeed is an issue, but also bonding and balancing sleep deprivation with my partner!!

Thanks for the brill insights, I may well pm you with more specifics when I have them.

Many years ago now (DC are in their 20s), but DH and I ran our own business, and I really couldn't take masses of time off. For DS it was back at work in a couple of months, and slightly less for DD (just 15 months later!) It wasn't money driven, but about keeping the business ticking over.

It was hard, but because we were our own bosses, there were advantages. I remember sleeping on my office floor, and if I was knackered, I could go early or leave late, which would be harder as a 'normal' employee.

Both of my children were looked after by the same woman from when they were 6/8 weeks old - she is actually godmother to the second DC - and they still absolutely adore her. Having that carer in place, together with wonderful backup from family, was key.

Good luck!

I should have point out the reason for my previous post is both myself and a few other people I know are self employed. I get SMP while some of the women can only claim maternity allowance. Some of the men get 2 weeks paternity leave, while others are entitled to SFA.

Hence you need to give more info about how you are self employed.

Btw both myself and another woman I know are taking/took 4 months off. However both have OHs who can take loads of leave due to being employed.

@bluebug45 I am both a director of a company, with my OH, and have external self employed income, so we file both a company return and I do my own SE tax return.

My work involves people employing my specific skills, in a specific location, so it's about balancing time off with keeping my career going. My OH has a more varied skill set, and could, in theory, work from home, but it's not the area of his career that he wants to develop.

Neither of us wants to "give up" on our careers because of the new team member, nor wants the other to have to. I guess that just means we will have to depend on outside support, and try yo negotiate that delicately and lovingly with our families.

What a joyous minefield!

OP your partner needs to be flexible especially as he can work from home.

Also while you can sort out other people to help out with childcare, unless you have a dedicated nanny one of you is likely to have to take time off if your child is suddenly ill/has an emergency. It makes no financial sense for it to be you if it means you lose more money, unless in the long term your partner can significantly out earn you.

I should add I work in a male dominated industry with many self-employed people and have siblings who are self-employed. When one person in a couple needs to take time out to look after a sick child it is always the one who in the long term will earn less. More and more frequently that is the man.

I'm saying this as someone who had a relation who was frequently in and out if hospital as a child. He had a sibling so the sibling had to be cared for by family including me and close friends'. Incidentally I wasn't self-employed until they were in secondary school so could spend a few hours on their own after school.

@babyready

I cant remember about maternity pay (and our accountant at the time messed it up), but my current accountant says you can pay yourself whatever you like... however it is very likely that whatever you get from HMRC will be minimal.
I'm pretty sure I got MA which is based on salary x months prior to claim - I have a typical low directors' salary so I won't be eligible for much at all.

Best to ask your accountant though - they all seem to have their own strategies and you may be able to claim more.

As far as time away from baby goes, I don't really remember... Not a lot though. My son was bottle fed and slept unusually well overnight, my husband took turns getting up with him, and all four grandparents came to help, but we were both working as well and we were very tired especially in the first three months.

I didn't get time to sit around cuddling him, relax in front of the TV etc, and sometimes had to park him in a bouncer to answer an urgent email. My son didn't care but I did! I missed a bit of bonding/ recovery time because I underestimated how much downtime would be needed.

Final point - i saw sickness mentioned above - this is really important. Babies get poorly a lot and when they're poorly you don't sleep - sometimes you cant treat them and nap times go to pot. You also then get whatever they've got but ten times worse. You cant plan for this but it's important not to cram your schedule quite as full as you think you can, because it's easy to fall a couple of weeks behind while you/ they are recovering.

PS. Expecting baby 2 now and have already deliberately scaled back my work so I have less demands on me. This means my husband will be doing a lot less this time around, but equally reduces the need for the crazy last-minute juggling we had to do last time

Self employed where I need to go and see clients and can work from home. I can’t lie, it was tough. My kid wouldn’t take a bottle and so was breast feed and had no opportunity to leave her for long periods of time. When I had to go to clients she and my husband came too and I had to feed her in breaks. Looking back it was crazy. I’m now expecting number two and we’re just going to have to make me not working work for as long as we can. I also had PND and I’m sure the stress of going back to work so quickly and juggling it all was a major factor.....