How much did you save before baby arrived?

[erised24]

Just wondering what's a good amount to save? Unfortunately I haven't been able to save a lot due to a basic retail job and being furloughed for the last 3 months (am now on mat leave).

I've tried to avoid some expenses by buying second hand, not buying unnecessary things, buying cloth nappies and I plan on breast feeding.

I think the best answer for all of us is probably “as much as you can”, but how much that equates to will vary tremendously, as I suspect the incomes of the women on this post will do, too!

I'm due in Sept. Over lock down I've managed to save about £1000 which tbh I don't think I'd have been able to do if I was in work due to petrol, food, shopping etc. I've managed to get most things we need, parents on both sides are helping out by covering the travel system, monitor and cotbed stuff. I think this being my 2nd baby I've definitely been more conscious about not going overboard on stuff like clothes etc x

We saved enough to cover the drop in wages for my mat leave for DC1. Currently pregnant with DC2 and back to saving so we have enough to cover the drop in wages again. So each month we topped my pay back up to the full wage.

However, I get 21 weeks full pay then SMP and took / will take a full year off. I also used and will use as many holidays as possible to cover the unpaid weeks. This time around I’m due in Feb so it will be the full years holiday allowance (35 days).

It’s a boring 9 months saving but worth it for us in the end.

I'm due in February and I have currently saved £2000, a lot of the things I've bought have been hammy downs (I candy pram, yes please) and the rest is from my aunts charity shop so I am doing things on the cheap but oh well, I'm putting £500 a month away and luckily I get my full pay on mat leave ;)

It depends on your outgoing really.I start maternity next week and have managed to save enough to cover the mortgage for about 7 months. Second baby so have pram, cot etc. Mostly bought second hand, am planning on cloth nappies at least in part this time and hoping breast feeding is more successful this time round.

I think 'a good amount' is however much you need in order to cover your expenses. It's going to vary from person to person depending on your circumstances - cost of your bills, what % you/your partner each contribute, what your lifestyle costs are like.

I looked over my expenses (half of our rent/mortgage, half of all other household bills like gas & electric, water, council tax, my phone bill, food costs, nappy costs) to see what I would need each month, then added on a bit extra so that I can have some 'fun money', treat myself to something from a cafe from time to time, maybe the odd take away.

Then I looked at how much I would be getting per month, and how short of that monthly amount I wanted to get to I would be each month... then from there I knew how much I needed to save per paycheck before going onto maternity leave.

Hmm, we haven't been that focused on saving specifically for the baby as we're buying a house at the same time so are also saving for furniture, DIY costs etc.

Lockdown has really helped though, with me wfh I've managed to put just over half my salary aside each month, but there is no way on earth I could have done that under normal circumstances. And I've literally bought nothing but rent and food. OH is saving as much as poss but is a bit trickier for him as he can't wfh.

I figure that once the main bits are bought, maternity leave outgoings should be fairly small, similar to wfh?

Also worth remembering, unless you’re going it alone, that a baby isn’t simply for the mother to fund. Your husband/partner should also be saving for/contributing to the drop in income when you’re not at work.

I’d look at priority financial commitments (mortgage/rent, council tax and other key utility bills, food costs, pension contributions and other planned bills like insurance/car/travel) and then unnecessary but common bills (like sky/Netflix etc, holiday fund) then add those together with ‘fun money’ to see what you think you’ll need.

I’m due in October and I’ve currently saved £2700

I saved about £8k but really should've tried to save more. Now that I've had the baby and she's in childcare, we still have the ability to save so I think I could've saved an extra £5-600 a month.

We've done about £4500 but have had a 3 month mortgage break and have saved money over last 3 months just not being able to go out and spend as much on food/clothes/leisure. Got £7500 in total to top the months up if no or v little pay.

Nothing 🤷🏼‍♀️ We’ve overpaid the mortgage so we can have 3 months mortgage-free when my SMP stops but other than that we’ve got nothing saved. We can afford our bills on my reduced wage plus my husband’s wage and our daughter will get the funded hours at nursery come September so we’ll be better off than we are at present.

Thanks everyone.

I should add that my husband is adding to the savings. Between us we have about £5k and baby is due in July. We have everything we need for her to arrive but am hoping this is enough for when she arrives... will obviously continue saving.

I agree, unless you're a single parent it's not just your responsibility to cover the shortfall. We've had a joint account for mortgage/bills/food for ages but my husband has recently upped his contribution to it so that he's covering all our essentials, my maternity pay will also go in and that will be our spending money/disposable income.

Last time and this time round I saved for y months worth of salary to cover when mu full pay runs out. Lockdown has helped somewhat as we have saved on nursery fees etc.

I think you should aim to cover whatever your mat pay wont.

*6 months salary

I’m aiming to save my half of the contribution to the household bills over the unpaid part of my maternity leave. My husband suggested we should save up together as it’s a shared reason I won’t be earning but he already pays more towards the bills since I went part time with my first, plus he’s useless with money and gets stressed so it’s just easier for me to save up! 😆 Then anything else I can squirrel away is a bonus, as it’s nice to have my own pocket money for all the cake and coffee, or baby classes etc on mat leave. Thanks to Covid, we had a few months off paying nursery bills for our eldest so that’s helped significantly.

We're aiming to save enough to top my wage back up to 75% of my full wage while I'm on half pay & SMP (I'll be using annual leave to extend my leave rather than taking any unpaid weeks). We chose 75% because that will be roughly equal to my wage once I'm back at work and paying nursery fees, so I figured it was a good idea to get used to that amount of income! Due in August and we should have met our target by then, largely due to being able to save £1K per month during lockdown. We couldn't start saving until then as were paying off credit cards, which is now done. We've also bought everything for the baby separate to savings, so that savings are only for bills/pin money. Planning to keep saving a decent amount each of my full pay months during leave as well.

We’re aiming to have saved £9k by the time our baby is born in December. That will cover the shortfall in pay when I am on mat leave. We don’t need to save for childcare because our parents are going to look after the baby when we go back to work.

We didn't specifically save for our first DD, but we had a fair amount in savings ready for house deposit, so we knew we could dip in if/when we needed to. My first maternity pay was also quite good, as I was full time before I went on leave, and we'd worked out that between our incomes we'd still be ok for all normal expenditure and some to spare for baby expenses (previously that amount had been saving towards the deposit).

For current pregnancy it's a bit more complicated. Because I'm now part time, I have less pay (DH gets more than he did, but he hasn't gained as much as I've lost, and we have childcare for DD to pay for). So we have been saving for a little while, but also took the opportunity to reduce our mortgage payments so that we'd still be able to cover it during my maternity leave. We're saving the difference currently, and will do so until my maternity leave starts (so 6/7 months savings in total). My mother had volunteered to assist with some childcare so that we have some time after my salary returns before we have to start paying childcare so that we can build up a buffer again.

Alas, best laid plans have gone a bit awry.... I'm expecting twins! I had intended to reuse pram/car seat/high chair etc, but will need to purchase new and childcare costs will obviously be double what we had budgeted for. So will be dipping HEAVILY into savings when they start nursery

Generally I'd advise that you save enough to cover your drop in income through your maternity leave, and maybe some large purchases e.g. pram/car seats. Otherwise I think you want to be covering costs above that by increasing income or decreasing costs, as they are likely to be quite long term.