Maternity pay

[Polkadot123]

Hey all. Bit of a personal question so apologies in advance, please don’t reply if you aren’t comfortable but massive thanks if you are happy to share.
I’m currently expecting baby number 1 and I’m interested in what people generally spend their mat pay/ allowance on or are planning to do. I’m on maternity allowance due to being self employed so will receive around 600 a month. Just trying to work out my budgets etc. Do people contribute a small amount to home bills and mortgage etc out of this or do you expect partners to cover that? I know everyone’s situation is completely different and that some people have separate accounts than their partner, some have joint etc. I’m just trying to gain some perspective. Thanks in advance x

Pre-babies we had a joint account and both put money 50/50 each month to cover mortgage, bills, etc. Then have our own money too.

I’m NHS so got reasonable maternity and took some unpaid (3 months) so saved about £3000 for the months I wouldn’t be getting anything. I went back to work part time so obviously salary dropped and DH now earns a fair amount more so we roughly split expenses. He pays mortgage, bills and loan repayment, I pay car, food and anything we need for DD or house. Bigger expenses such as furniture, holidays, etc we discuss and agree an amount each.

I’m now pregnant with number 2 so am saving for mat leave again

Xx

I worked out how much money I would need to continue paying my half of the bills and between us we saved that amount plus a bit extra while pregnant (deducting the amount provided by mat pay).

So I have enough saved (by both of us) and with my mat pay to pay half the mortgage, phone contract, utilities etc. DH is paying more towards food, Petrol etc

@jazzibelle Hey, so with self employed people it’s classed as a maternity allowance rather than mat pay. It’s about £151 a week which is equal to stay mat pay and that’s For 39 weeks. I believe you can claim £22 a week child benefit too If it’s your first child?. I’ve been self employed since 2011 so that’s how it’s worked for me but if you’ve only been self employed a matter of Months or weeks, it can be less from what I gather.
If you go to www.gov.uk/Maternity-allowance you can either download a form to fill out and send off or request a form to be posted out to you with a free post envelope to reply. You just have to fill it out and send it of with your Mat B1 form which is issued to you by your midwife after you 20 week appointment.
It’s pretty straight forward.
I’ll receive £692 a month I believe which is probably about 1/5 of my regular income 🙈 but hey ho- it’s fine and just one of the cons of been self employed. Just thankful I saved in advance and worked my booty off for the last ten years especially since my partners work has been badly affected by the whole pandemic situation. I believe that if you are currently receiving help on the self employments Seiss grants thats also still accessible and there will be another one issued in the next few months for those adversely affected. Your maternity allowance shouldn’t affect this. Hope that’s helpful and sorry if anything I’ve said is wrong- I’m still getting my head around things too 😂 x

If that link doesn’t work just google ‘maternity allowance gov.uk’ x

@Polkadot123 that's so helpful, thank you for posting all that info. I've been SE for years so hopefully I'll get a decent wedge from the allowance. We've got savings, but with covid and work slowing down both me and my husband are bringing in a LOT less most of last year, despite the grants. I'll check out the link you posted and go from there. Thanks again :-)

I earn almost double what DH does normally so it will be quite different when baby comes. Currently we have separate bank accounts and just divvy the mortgage and bills etc up in what feels like a fair way based on our wages (so I put in more). All big purchases are joint and considered together but since I’m the only one really in a position to save money they usually come out of my account which I’m fine with.
Sat mat pay is going to be quite a curve ball but I’ve got a lovely spreadsheet that has helped our plan. We’re getting a joint account (after 10 years together lol) and will put all of his salary, all of my mat pay plus a bit of savings into it each month but leave behind an ‘allowance’ for ourselves for no judgement spending. Personally I prefer this to frivolous spending coming out of the joint account purely because I don’t want to end up getting annoyed about him buying something I think is pointless and vice versa.
Also, I’m keeping a personal savings pot back in my own account as my grandma always told me to keep an escape fund, no matter how wonderful your husband is! 😂

We don't share finances and split everything 50/50 so I continued to pay 50% whilst on maternity leave. I saved up whilst I was pregnant so I could afford it