Mat Leave and budgeting - advice from career women to a first time mum!

[TTc2019BabyNo1]

Hi ladies,
After some advice from those of you who have done this before:

Firstly - budgeting for a baby, how much a month additional are we talking? Exclude purchasing of the initial things - just the ‘running costs’ if you will 😂.

Secondly - maternity leave, how much time did you take off? Was it too much? Too little?
I earn more than my husband and shocked to see how low SMP is so I really don’t think I can take that much time off. Would love to hear people’s real life experiences.
Anyone done the shared parental leave?

Thanks in advance! I am aware I have a lot of research to do but thought I’d start here! 😊

I can't fully advise but I will be dropping from 1700 a month to SMP. I am trying to get a few grand together while I can to top this up to try and take the full 12 months off. I'm going to save my kit days for the end when you're earning less and will have built up my years annual leave so it's doable.

My husband is off work at the moment, but plan is for him to do some agency work then potentially be a stay at home dad to reduce child care 😊.

Also I get the impression the running costs are quite cheap at this stage 😂😂

So your employer doesn’t offer any additional contractual maternity pay?

Perhaps your H could take shared parental leave?

Childcare costs when you return to work are the biggest thing.

With my first I took a year off, I got 18 weeks occupational pay then stat mat after this. We saved, ALOT whilst pregnant to match my wage whilst on stat mat and whilst I was unpaid.

This time around after the 18 weeks full pay we can’t afford huge amounts extra with nursery fees etc, so saved enough to have six months off in total.

I’d aim for 9 months, have you budgeted for when you go back to work? Nursery costs in the north are around £900 a month for full time... there is the govt tax free childcare which really helps. But it’s expensive!

Running costs probably 10/15 extra in a shop a week....but then there are the extra coffees you go for as you are on mat leave, clothes shopping etc .....as much or as little as you want.

It all depends on your lifestyle and adjustments. With my first I only took six months out as I hadn’t planned or budgeted for it.

I am about to start mat leave again and will go from 4,500 a month to SMP. I have saved enough for the mortgage and 1400 for every month I want to be off on top of that. I am planning to take 14 months off this time around and really enjoy the kids before I return to my job.

Taking time off put my career back a little but not too significantly. I just had to work hard when I returned and get promoted. Good luck!

Am also the higher earner. Took six months but it wasn't long enough at all. I had to go off a month before the birth so was five months postpartum and hadn't even recovered from birth at all.

Maternity pay sucks but fortunately (all the initial purchases aside) the day to day cost is minimal. If you're breastfeeding then really it's just nappies to worry about. Things don't start to get crazy expensive until you look at nursery fees.

We did shared parental leave which was a massive mistake, both practically, financially and relationship wise. It would have been much better for me to go back part time, DH to keep working and to do a few days a week of nursery. Shared parental leave is probably the biggest regret I have about how we did it all.

I’m the main earner by a huge amount. I’m taking 12 months off inclusive of annual leave so I’ll get my enhanced pay (6 weeks full inc SMP, 12 weeks half plus SMP) plus 7 weeks and 1 day paid leave and SMP for 21 weeks. We are going to need £15k of savings to bridge the gap in income on just our bare essentials.

We are using washable nappies and hope to BF so should have minimal additional costs, child benefit should cover those when back at work.

Childcare will be our main outgoing at approx £800pcm after tax free bit taken off.

You definitely need savings to take decent mat leave.

Initially babies are v cheap. With my first I was determined not to fall into the trap of buying everything new.

I borrowed newborn sized clothes and returned them after use.
I gratefully also borrowed bouncy chair, play mat and various other temporary bits of equipment.
Buggy second hand off eBay for a decent model.
Boot sales and hand me downs for clothes.
The only real expense was the car seat and the next to me cot.
Regular costs initially around £15-20 a week for formula and nappies. Breastfeeding could save further if you can make it work for you. Baby groups can add to that but there will be free ones available too. You’ll have more time to cook from scratch etc which can save money on eating out etc.

I took 6 months off and for me this worked well financially. I started the KIT days once the full pay tailed off at month four. Taking a slightly shorter leave also allowed me to stay more in the loop at work but know it’s not for everyone.

Good luck OP. Exciting times ahead for you!

I went from a professional salary to SMP. The costs of the baby in the first year were negligible against what I saved in commuting, work clothes& lunches etc. I bf so basically £10 a week for nappies & toiletries.

I saved up £20k to cover mortgage etc.
As others have said, the fun starts when you go back to work. Childcare 10 years ago was £750/month full time for childminder rather than a nursery.
Unfortunately I was fired first morning back at work and spent 11 months fighting a tribunal case, so it ended up being quite tight, although I did get paid eventually.
Hopefully that won’t happen to you but make sure you have some reserves.

In terms of budgeting, after the initial set up costs (particularly cot, car seat, pushchair, sling) there are more set up costs as they keep growing and changing (desperate purchases like a swinging chair if you have a non sleeping baby, toys like a jumperoo, highchair, stair gates and other house safety stuff, next size up car seat). I was surprised at how much extra stuff you end up buying - even if you buy most of it 2nd hand it does add up. Babies also grow out of clothes incredibly quickly initially, so unless you have a lot passed down to you or are happy to buy 2nd hand (Facebook excellent for this) again it'll add up.

In terms of other ongoing costs, the main one for me was baby classes as I needed to get out the house. Round here, private classes are generally 6 to 8 weeks per week per class - church and Surestart centre run groups are cheaper. I went out once a week or so for coffee and cake with DC1 as well. Nappies work out at about 20 to 25 quid a month. No idea on formula costs as I breastfed, if breastfeeding you'll want breastfeeding bras which aren't cheap. We didn't notice any increase in what we spent overall though as we found we went out for less drinks / meals / weekends away so it balanced out. We start noticing the extra food adding up in the weekly shop once DC1 reached about 18 months ish.

We saved up and also cut back (no holidays, no new clothes etc for us) so I could take a year off with DC1 and 2 and I'm planning the same for DC3. However, I found both times so far for the first couple of months back at work it was really hard to get back into it after that long off - if your career is a priority I can see why people choose to take less time off.

On actual numbers, I'm now out of the loop as my youngest is 6 - but to help you budget:

Price up 2 packs of nappies and a pack of 4 wipes a week.

If you formula feed, a tin a week is about right. (Less at the start, more towards 6 months, drops off when you start adding solid food).

Your house will go from being empty in the day to used, so gas and electricity bills will increase. You might use your car more.

Clothing wise, they grow fast in the first year! But the speed they grow, the supermarket clothing is fine, have a look at baby grow prices when you are in there. Assume need to kit them out every quarter for the 1st year, then 6 monthly. You can reduce that cost by buying second hand. You will be given a lot of clothes as well.

If you will be at home for a long time, budget money for going to baby classes like baby massage /sensory classes/ makaton classes /toddler groups, not just for the baby, but for you to get out and meet other mums. It can be very long lonely days at home if you dont.

The big cost is childcare, I took a year off after dc1, then it was £50 a day in childcare (outside M25, commuter town for London), believe my dcs old nursery now charges £65 a day, worth calling local ones to you as it varies greatly around the country. (Also many will do earlier drop offs than advertised, but you will have to pay a little more).

With nurseries, worth checking out their preschool if they have one, makes life a lot easier if you can keep them there for preschool and knock the 15 hours off your bill, rather than try to move them to another preschool and use a childminder to do the run.

We didn't do shared mat leave (dh was the higher earner), friends who did had mixed reviews of it - from an outside point of view, how successful it was depends on if the mother can let go about her way of doing things and let the father find their own routine, and if the father was hands on before swapping the leave.

Oh and if you can, budget/save for new clothes for you.

Your body will change, you will need new clothes, and its shit feeling like you only have 2 pairs of trousers you fit in (with a wardrobe full of nice things that just need another inch to go to get in them!), realising one pair are on the line wet and the baby has just vomited on the other pair...

If you go back to work under a year, you dont want to feel under pressure to lose baby weight to get back into work clothes.

Wow, thank you so much everyone for the amazing, helpful responses!
I clearly have a lot of planning to do to see realistically how long I can have off.
I have been saving since the start of the year and i’m due in December so should hopefully have a fair amount by then.

I just need to sit down and see how much I need per month bare minimum to cover mortgage, house expenses, car, food and baby!

Interesting about the shared parental leave! I have to say I’m a bit dubious about it as I will probably get FOMO and i’m probably a bit too controlling and would be calling the husband everyday checking in lol!

One last question for you knowledgeable ladies - at the moment I work from home two days a week as I have a long commute.
Can I WFH with a baby or is that not possible?
I’m just thinking if I can still WFH two days a week, we could alternate the grandparents for childcare two days then that just leaves one where I would need to factor in the cost?

Thank you so so much for all your helpful comments! Honestly I would be completely panicking otherwise 😊 x

I’ve never managed to wfh with ds around. And he’s 10 now. But he’s always been a lively one. Maybe others have?

I'd say WFH and having the baby at home is a no, but it depends on your employer. My employer would be asking what childcare arrangements I'd made the days I planned to work from home, and I'd also be expected to account for the 8 or so hours work, I do my normal working day at home, and usually stick to same tea breaks/lunch hour. I definitely would not be able to do my full time job, and full time childcare all at once.

No, its not possible to WFH without childcare. My employer forbids it and they are generally accommodating if most things. You could get away with a shorter childcare day though potentially which would save?

With a newborn yes or up until they are mobile yes you could WFH, once they can move then it’s a no... you wouldn’t actually get any work done as they are into everything!!!

I think your 'running costs' can be whatever you need them to be. It's possible to spend a lot on formula, nappies, baby classes, coffees with mum-friends etc. Or spend virtually nothing with reusables (initial cost obvs if you're buying them) breastfeeding, doing free stuff and spending time with people at your homes; I guess it's about the lifestyle / choices that will work for you...? I imagine most of us land somewhere in the middle of the spectrum.

By necessity we did it fairly frugally, though if it had been an option I'd probably have enjoyed some extra cash to splurge on coffees and groups. Somebody mentioned £10-15 extra on weekly shop...our weekly shop actually dropped because being at home I was able to do more scratch cooking. Racking my brains, and I can't really think of any essential baby-specific products we bought regularly, really, in the first year. Clothes etc were gifted / lent / hand me downs.

I left work as DD was very ill at birth then technically 'disabled' for the first couple of years. I started working from home when she was about 18m, and work pt now. So it's been a massive income drop for us that we've had to adjust to.

Cost an extra £15-£20 a week which was for milk, nappies, wipes etc. More when she started eating solids for little pouches, yoghurts, baby biscuits/crisps etc. But then using less milk. Used baby farm moisturiser and bubble bath which cost about £8 a month. So probably £100 a month for me. Then clothes on top of that. Seems quite a lot more than I thought!

I got 6 months full pay so saved some money from that to cover the other months I was on SMP. Was planning to take a year but had to go back at 10.5 months to get the part time hours I wanted. Was def enough time off but I only went bk 3 days a week.

This time I'm part time so my wage is a lot lower so I'll need to use some savings to help me out over the last few months. Planning to take about same amount of time.

If you can save a bit throughout your pregnancy to help subside your mat leave it will help enormously.

I had dd 5 years ago and was only earning about £1300 a month so couldn't really save much on my salary. Dh was earning quite a bit more as a teacher so we managed a bit from that.
Unfortunately in the 5 months prior to dd being born dh was out of work so most of what we had saved was used up. He got work the month dd arrived but we were primarily living on his wage and smp.
I'd spend about £25 a week on food/nappies/wipes etc, go on lots of walks and entertain myself at home or feeding ducks at the park etc.
Utilising free stuff can be a great help. I didn't get new clothes as it wasn't something we could afford so I mainly stayed in mat stuff until I started to fit into pre baby clothes. Thankfully I still had some older stuff from when I had been a bit bigger for the interim period.
Dh was out of work again when dd was 8 months old for a few months so we lived on smp only and the last of what we had managed to scrape together.
I won't lie, it was bloody tough, but people get by on a lot less than we did.
We've had ups and downs financially since and we both started new careers which meant a massive drop in salary for dh (I have managed to increase slightly since dd was born)
I want to take a year this time so it's going to be a rough ride, but you need money for mortgage, utilities, food and any other essentials. The rest is up to you.

Buying stuff for baby - depends what you want to spend really. We probably spent 2k over pregnancy. Could have been much lower.

Maternity leave - without trying I probably saved £500+ on what I’d normally spend. Nappies aren’t expensive and I EBF both. Saved on commute, going out, general expenses from going to work. Still met friends for coffees, wine etc lots.

Can I WFH with a baby or is that not possible?

As a one off eg with an ill child I can do odd bits of work from home but generally no.

Oh also I did baby led weaning on my first and will do on my second when the time comes. Just ate normal food and I never bought baby food pouches or tins. It basically just meant cooking maybe 110% what I was eating or wasting less. I didn’t notice any extra cost until 1 year plus when they started eating a lot and I needed to bring bananas and other snacks with me everywhere.