Disposable income once baby is here

[Clemmie83]

I've seen a lot of posts recently about money concerns and I'm in the same boat myself! It got me wondering what a reasonable monthly disposable income is (after mortgage, bills, food shop etc) once baby is here?

Anyone fancy sharing?

We'll have about £600 which will be tight be doable I reckon?

We spent very little during my mat leave. Dp had been made redundant so was on jobseekers and I was on SMP only, we only spent £400 of savings in 11 months. A baby is not expensive.

Surely there is likely to be a huge disparity in answers? Eg for us, our disposable income will go up for the first 6 months of my maternity leave as I will be on full pay but won’t be commuting, spending money on dinners/theatre/work clothes etc. Not doing those things will give me an extra grand a month, probably.

It’s a bit like the “how much of your income do you spend on a mortgage?” posts - more useful to know as a % rather than actual amounts.

(Mind you, I’m nosey so these are always interesting topics )

Agree there will be huge variation, I just find it really interesting what people live off! We've had a big drop in our income recently pre-baby and at the moment it's not affecting things too much, especially not being able to go anywhere due to the virus! Suppose I'm just stressing about how much we'll notice it once baby is here...

I'm the same as @WhatWouldPennyDo had full income for 4 months, but no commuting etc. so my disposable income went way up. Then when we started paying for childcare, it went way down.

There will be less opportunity to spend money on things such as baby groups / cafe trips etc for the forseeable future, which is where I think a fair bit of disposable income got spent when I was on maternity leave. Overall once you've got pram / crib etc there isn't really much you need to spend money on.

I usually have around £350 spare per month after bills etc. Once I'm on maternity leave I'll have a grand total of £0 as my DH is picking up my outgoings for me and I'll be on statutory maternity pay after my first 6 weeks off.
I'll just have to live off whatever is in his bank account as I won't have a penny to myself! 😭
However we are currently saving like crazy so whatever we save I will use for day to day things.
Our household bills will already be covered by DH.
Due to what me and DH earn currently we aren't entitled to anything from the government; tax credits etc

If my budget is right about £350 a month after all our bills and the basics for baby.

We paid about 3k off our credit cards in six months last year and before that it was house and wedding costs so honestly feel like we won't be missing much and we almost live off one income so going down to SMP won't be too bad.

We saved up in advance of me getting pregnant and I had a generous maternity package so it ended up in no difference to our income whilst I was on maternity leave.

We're trying to save too, how much would you say is a decent amount to have behind you?

We saved the equivalent of any reduction in my salary whilst on maternity leave and the costs of cots, pram, larger car etc.

Remember that your budget needs to include nappies, clothes, formula.

After those increases I didn't spend that much, and could go to cafes etc

with my first baby I lived of £20 a week or less after Bill's as I was on smp only and my partner was leaving one job and starting another. Its doable. I didnt take her to any baby groups or anything until she was 12 weeks because I just thought it was pointless, and if people wanted to see the baby they mostly came to my house. I'm pregnant with my second now and we should be better off because my partner is in a better job and I will be trying to get abit of savings behind me, but tbh as long as your Bill's are paid that's all that matters. You wont want to drag a baby out with you to go for lunch etc all the time so you'll save alot of money

We saved enough to cover what I normally have to spend each month in advance of baby 1. This time round we are in a position to save a bit more and a big bonus is we get 30 free hours for DS in Sept, so able to save his fees (or whatever reduction we get) on top of normal savings.

I am one of the lucky ones though, full pay for 6 months which means I only need to save for 6 months worth.

@Clemmie83 we worked on the basis of having 6 months each of salary saved so if both of us were to find ourselves unexpectedly unemployed we could maintain the same lifestyle (outgoings/bills, savings, disposable income) for a further 6 months without change or eek it out to about 15-18 months if we stopped the fun stuff and savings. Everyone has different attitudes towards risk and savings, though.

My savings goal is to have the same income on mat leave as I do now. I get 3 months paid, 3 months on half pay and then 3 months SMP (will probably go back to work then), so aiming to have enough saved to plug the gap for the 6 months where I’m not being fully paid.