Finances on maternity leave

[LouisLitt1]

How much maternity pay do you get? I’m lucky I think my company is more generous than most and I get 20weeks full pay.

Depends on the company. You need to read your Maternity Policy which will have all the criteria for eligibility e.g. how long you have to have been working at your company etc.

SMP is provided by Govn when workplace allowances run out (or if the company doesn't provide anything). Amounts can be found on Gov.uk

Yep, as I said I have 20 weeks enhanced, paid for by my company before going to statutory.

I get nothing accept for statutory maternity pay. Around £140 per week I think.
Total rubbish if you ask me, so trying to save as much as possible before baby arrives in September

Wow! You are so lucky! I work in the public sector which is rubbish - 4 weeks full pay, 2 weeks 90% before dropping to 12 weeks at 50%. After that it's SMP for remaining 21.

I’m in the private sector and mine is much worse! 6 weeks at 90% and rest at smp. So I am envious of anyone getting better than that! It’s luck of the draw really. I always just save beforehand and try make the most of still getting childcare vouchers covered by the company and the holiday pay too. It all helps.

Statutory maternity allowance. Absolutely rubbish and I can’t even work at the moment due to Covid, so come my maternity leave later in the year I will have had no chance to have saved some extra. Hoping to return to work on 4th and save hard.

26 weeks full pay. Not bragging I know I am so lucky! But just to show these policies are out there!

I'm very lucky - the enhanced package is 26 full pay, 13 weeks SMP following that. I'm in the public sector (local authority). It means I can afford to take the full 52 weeks off.

I also get paid for keeping in touch days if I go in for those.

9 weeks at 90% then SMP, so I'm taking 39 weeks and then my full annual holiday allowance so I'll lend up with 34 weeks off (but currently furloughed so mat pay won't start until the day baby is born which is very helpful)

Posted too early

Although the furlough scheme is great for my business it's made it very hard to save any money during the months leading up to mat pay and I've been told I won't be returning to the office until baby is born and my mat leave is done ..

Isn't it mad how much it can vary? I had no idea how widely different everyone's maternity pay could be so this has been a very interesting thread OP. I'm also on another one a lady had posted, about finding costs very stressful and she has had such mixed responses - I now know why when maternity pay varies so drastically between us all. And let's not get started on paternity leave and pay...!

NHS... 8 weeks full pay, 18 weeks half pay plus SMP, 13 weeks SMP. Way better than loads of places but it’ll still be a stretch this time!

12 weeks full pay 6 weeks 90% I think. Work did a large supermarket

I'm so lucky with mine and definitely a reason I have stayed knowing I soon wanted a family! 26 weeks full pay and 13 weeks statutory.

26 weeks full pay and 13 weeks SMP. I'm only taking the 26 weeks but know I'm lucky. It's part of the reason (alongside things like pension and job security) I took the job I did!

I’m NHS too, took nine months mat and three months AL worked out at £1500 pm on average.

I’m amongst the lucky ones... 26 weeks full pay and 13 weeks SMP. Didn’t realise how lucky I was until reading these posts x

SMP only, which sucks.. Hard. Work in the veterinary industry!

Public sector - 18 weeks full pay then SMP, plan on taking a full year again

Extremely lucky where I work - full year full pay. It’s an industry where typically less than 15% of employees are female so it’s a great perk to encourage more women into the company - even though the specific role I do is typically done by women.
It’s a policy that made me stay with them through some pretty crappy times!

22 weeks full pay, followed by SMP which will be a massive drop. Husband has 20 weeks full pay for SPL. Savings in place for the short fall.

MA only as SE but dh took 26 weeks full pay SPP.

I know I’m lucky to have the enhanced pay and 20 weeks is a long time to be on full pay, my plan is to divide that out equally across the other months on statutory and no pay (deffo taking the full year) so we are not too stressed about money. For me it was a conscious decision to move to a sector with generous maternity policies a couple of years back, before I was even ready to start trying. It is shocking how companies don’t offer any enhanced package and I had seen so many posts on here from women already pregnant and only just looking into their maternity policies to find they will get nothing and massively stressing. The other benefits are working in a more flexible workplace which has the option for part time work too for the future.

Lots of very generous packages on here!

I’m SMP only but DH works away and brings in a very good wage. We made the conscious decision before trying for me to move to a position which, despite having no extra maternity package, will give me excellent flexibility with hours on returning to work which was more important to us with DH working away from home for a few weeks at a time. It also has great overtime availability for us to quickly build savings.

What we didn’t count on was getting pregnant the first time we tried 😂 (so grateful that we did but definitely unexpected!), me being furloughed on 80% wage the following month for nearly 4 months and DH being made redundant a few weeks later (2months short of receiving any kind of redundancy package) 🤣🤣

Ouch @WK29 that is not an ideal set of circumstances to hit you all at once unexpectedly - hope you're managing ok!