Maternity pay?

[nicannie]

This might have been covered before so I'm sorry if it has.

Have anyone any experience of receiving the lowest maternity pay available to them? The policy at our work is 6 weeks 90% pay and then after that it's the statutory maternity pay, which is around £148 p/w, which is extremely low if your used to earning a decent amount.

My doctor was mentioning things like keeping in touch days etc to boost my wage up when it goes into the low payments and I'm able. I earn good money just now for my age, over £30k a year and I'm just worried that it will stress me when that statutory pay commences!

I'm in the same boat, my employers maternity pay is statutory minimum. It's going to be quite a shock to the bank balance when the time comes. I'm lucky that DH has a decent wage, but still makes me feel completely undervalued.

Mines the same, I started doing odd KIT days from 3 months to top my money up as my salary is over 30 too, I did 30 KIT days before going back

Had exactly this also. Def a factor in my keeping mat leave to 6 months.

Same boat! My husband is self employed and earns less than me so will be a shock. Fortunately I have another job which I do from home - I plan to return after 6 weeks when wage from work drops.

At the moment I’m trying to save the difference between what I currently earn to what I’ll get, in the hopes I learn to survive on it and have a bit of savings (just in time for tax bills!)

Also, what are your options regarding annual leave - if you have any for the year before you go on Mat leave you might be able to add that to end of your Mat leave plus the annual leave you accrue whilst on Mat leave which helps.

@Lauren83 30 kit days, I thought you could only do up to 10? I’m planning on using my kit days when I’m on maternity leave

Zarara you can do up to 30 if you changed to shared leave instead of maternity, it was my HR department that looked into it and let me know, they wanted me to work and I wanted the extra pay. I did 10 on mat leave then we did the paperwork to switch me to shared (DP didn't have to do anything nor did he have to take any leave or KIT days)

I'm actually on mat leave again now as of 2 weeks ago and plan on doing the same again, start KIT days from Sept and then do 30 Sept-Dec and back properly Jan

I'm the same! Husband earns less than me and I earn just over £30k. I've been saving £500 a month since Jan to cover my shortfall. We will also take a 'mortgage holiday' for 2 months and I will use annual leave and KIT days where possible
Husband will obviously pay more towards bills etc too. It's going to be tight but I reckon our spending will be less as we won't go out and about as much! Haha

This makes me feel so much better knowing I'm not the only one 'panicking' slightly.

DH is self employed but earns a lot more than me, pretty sure even though he hasn't said it he will help out and pay a little more over those months. I plan to do at least my 10 KIT days to top it up, and potentially keep my mat leave to only 6 months.

I still have a while to plan. I only recently found out, so I'm only around 7 weeks. I don't have much bills, no finance car etc so I can save a lot each month. Hoping this will help cover any shortfall I may have