Financial Planning for Maternity Leave SMP

[JuneySunshine]

Hello,

I hope this is the right place for this thread I looked and couldn't see anywhere better.

Our LO is due in March and I'm getting a bit nervous about finances. I'm a FTM and just waiting for my employer to confirm entitlements but not expecting anything or much beyond SMP as there wasn't anything in my contract. Once I've got that I'll be able to look at everything month by month.

I'm a bit of a MSE nerd so always keep our bills competitive and look to take advantage of bank switches, cashback, loyalty schemes etc. I know about Child Benefit and Sure Start Grant. We're also trying to save but should maybe focus a bit harder on that.

I'd love some help on the following;

Budgeting monthly costs for baby- I was thinking nappies, maybe formula, classes, clothes etc. What would you allow?

Earning money- is there any realistic way to top up your income while on maternity? I do survey sites and ebay selling. Is there anything else worth the bother?

If the finances don't look good once planned out, would dropping our mortgage payments be a good option? We asked about this when we started the mortgage and they implied they would be flexible (as term is only 10 years currently) but does anyone have experience of this?

Anything else I'm missing or you wish you'd know looking back?
All help appreciated.

I've not got much to say apart from check your mortgage company offers a payment break.

When I had my first they had a payment break which we wasn't able to do as we just took out the new mortgage - however when they realised it was for maternity leave they gave us 3 months break as they had a maternity clause or something.

@czycoup Oh thank you! Hadn't heard about that and just thought we'd have to renegotiate it.

I'm trying to remember the details but I think they give a 1 month break for every 9 months of continuous payments. So I was going to take 2 months towards the end of my mat leave. However, they then said there was a 3 month maternity break. It did increase my payments by about £10 a month or so - it was hardly noticeable.

Check if your mortgage company offers payment breaks and if so how much it might increase your payments

Also check your partners contract under the Shared Parental Leave section - it's in a different section to the Paternity Leave section. We weren't aware, but my partner checked his and gets four months full pay. Other friends partners and husbands have had something decent also.

It's not for everyone, but we're doing reusable nappies - it's one upfront cost but they last til potty training so a lot cheaper comparatively.

Breastfeed, it's so much cheaper!

I went back to work at 6-7 months as couldn't afford longer, it was OK.

Ways to earn more depend on your job. Stuff like teachers do exam marking.

Look at shared parental leave.

You don't need much, look for free classes at libraries or cheap ones at church halls.

Cheeky wipes for baby wipes are expensive to start with but pay for themselves in 6 weeks.

@A1b2c3d4e5f6g7 Thank you :) unfortunately we can only dream re partners leave! Definitely interested in reusable nappies after the initial panic dies down! How did you find the type that worked best for you?

@Hercisback Thanks! Would love to BF but wondered if I should budget for formula just in case. Cheeky wipes look great and are going on my wish list now.

My daughter is due her first baby in feb and they are just buying their first house. I am starting to buy toiletries nappies etc so they will have a nice little stockpile so it might be worth asking family to do the same for christmas presents. Every little bit helps. And congrats on your pregnancy x

@flapjackfairy Thank you and congratulations to your daughter and the whole family too. That's a lovely idea to decrease weekly shopping bills.

I wouldn't buy too many nappies etc in advance in case baby doesn't get on with the ones you have brought. Could you ask for supermarket vouchers for xmas and you can use them fit anything you need when baby is here? Think aldi formula is the cheapest if you choose to FF. For classes try council run, I took DD to parent and baby swimming at the local council run leisure centre which was £5 a week rather than £15 a week with water-babies. I also went to a council run sensory class which was £1 donation per child. Also baby bounce and rhyme classes at the library was free of charge and got me out the house.

Apart from cot mattress and car seat get everything second hand. Facebook marketplace is fab - massive bundles of clothes for a few quid, decent buggies for 25% of RRP etc

You've got 5 pay packets to come between now and March. If you put a third of your take-home straight into savings for the next 5 months you'll have a tidy sum to give you a bit more leeway after your 6 weeks at 90% are over.

Living on a lower income is a matter of managing your expectations. Taking some of the hit right now will make the coming months at SMP minimal rate much less painful.

Don't buy expensive branded nappies/wipes total waste of money.

As pp says buying as much as possible second hand is a great way to save money.
I haven't budgeted for any clothes because we've spent less than £40 and have almost an entire years worth of clothes, the majority of which was free but we bought a few specific bits to fill the gaps and will top up with some cheap packets of onesies if we feel like we're getting through what we have quicker than we can wash!
Seriously Facebook marketplace is your friend!
Also every single gift we've gotten from friends/family so far has been clothes.. baby clothes are cute so people love to buy them for you as gifts.
We also got tons of nappies for free where people buy them in bulk & then their babies size up so they just want to get rid of the excess, really recommend looking out for these kind of things as some people have said you don't know what brand/sizes will work for your baby so don't want to buy too many in case they don't work out. Once you know what brand works you can budget for those specifically but if money is tight, supermarket own brands are reasonably priced so budget with those in mind first?
We are also planning on using cloth, though maybe not fully & definitely not straight away but should still save some money - check your local council website, ours has vouchers you can use towards cloth nappies, different policies in different councils though, but ours you can choose between 3 brands and get tons of stuff to start you off for like £20 because their voucher covers the rest of the cost.
I think the costs of classes & whether there are council run options available probably depends on the area you are in? So worth researching online to get an idea of local options & costs.
I have several friends who do sensory classes that are not cheap and I've seen all the photos/videos am I not super impressed for the price so won't be bothering with those myself, though will be looking to see if our area has any £1 council ones like a pp!
We are planning to do swimming, because I think it's fun & a good skill so worth more in my mind & we also have good free classes at our local library. So not planning to budget a lot for baby classes personally, but I'm also not massively social so probably wouldn't attend a lot of these classes anyway as they'll feel a bit awkward to me, so depends on what you think you'll enjoy!
Mortgage holidays as recommended by pp sound like a good shout too.
We've put together a budget to help ourselves reduce our food bill by aiming to batch cook more and have been saving aggressively until I go on maternity leave to give us an extra buffer.
Can't really advise on formula, hoping to breastfeed (partly because it's 'free'!) but imagine it's kind of the same as nappies from what I've heard in the sense that your baby might not get on with a certain type of formula so you might end up paying for a more expensive version that you'd anticipated. Also if your baby has any intolerances, the lactose free ones are normally more expensive too though I just found out from my friend that she gets her formula free on prescription from her doctor because her baby is allergic to cow milks protein (or lactose intolerant, can't remember which it was!) but my cousin has a similar issue & definitely pays for her formula so maybe it's not available in all areas on the NHS, but worth asking if that's something that comes up.

Marketplace on Facebook - people are always giving away free excess nappies and unopened formula! Also baby clothes etc.

Our household is on over 6 figures annually. I have so far bought EVERYTHING second hand off facebook and ebay!! Except mattresses and car seat! Also baby bottles prob get brand new too.
Wish I'd done that with my first 2 😂 Got a nearly new 'designer' pram rrp approx 1300 for 200 off ebay!!

Also have added baby stuff to food shop over last 5 weeks and counting. Formula, selection of different brands and sizes of nappies just so have some, wipes, toiletries etc. Also just in case the crazy panic buyers come out again and buy up all the formula and nappies i have a stash for the early days 🙄😡

I haven't been good at saving though 🙈 but mainly as suffering bad spd so all spare money goes on treating that or cheering myself up as in so much pain.

Do you have any option to make overpayments on your mortgage between now and starting mat leave? £100 extra a month for 5 months might mean they are more flexible and let you take a 1-2 month payment holiday when it gets towards the end of your mat leave.

@JuneySunshine for reusable nappies I did a quiz with Nappy Guru and The Nappy Lady and they make recommendations. You can call them and discuss what you need. I've bought some for the early weeks but then will see what I prefer for when baby is here. Other people have suggested a nappy library, but I haven't done that

Babies don't tend to trash clothes/ toys/ prams etc so get as much of that secondhand as you can- obviously not mattresses or car seats though. Facebook marketplace is crazy cheap I find compared to ebay/ gumtree. With my first I stockpiled so many toiletries/nappies and it was a waste of money. They really only need water on their skin for the first few months rather than soap etc. I bought a shedload of nappies and she came out in a hideous rash from them so ended up having to swap to another brand.

You can find your local sling library to hire and trial them first before buying (in case you end up with a velcro baby who refuses the lovingly chosen pram... 🙄😩😂).

With regards to reusable nappies- you can find your local nappy library. They usually offer newborn packs and btp packs. I wouldn't bother buying newborn nappies as they are expensive and you don't get the use out of them. If you can find some cheap for secondhand then they might be worth it then but value wise you'll probably find nappy library is cheaper. You can then use that to figure out what sort of nappies you prefer and what brands fit your baby best. If you're interested in reusable wipes you could just buy flannels rather than cheeky wipes etc. Much cheaper and do exactly the same thing. IKEA sell packs of 10 baby flannels for £3 or so. Most supermarkets sell packs of flannels for £1 for 2. Cheeky wipes are pretty small so I find I prefer the flannels as one flannel does an entire poo- if my husband does a poo with the cheeky wipes he uses about 10...🤦🏼‍♀️

Be aware of your work terms and conditions- can you do paid work whilst on maternity leave. I'm NHS and it's in our policy that I can't or I'll forfeit my maternity pay. There are ways of making money. Matched betting is a good way of doing that. I made about £600 in 2-3 months of just messing around. I could have made more but just got a bit bored of it. I will probably go back to it though. Sell things you don't need/ want.

Not everyone is eligible for the Sure Start Maternity Grant; it's for people on means-tested benefits such as Universal Credit.

You say you use MSE so you might have found this already but here it is in case not:
www.moneysavingexpert.com/family/baby-checklist/

There's some really helpful info and tools here too:
www.moneyhelper.org.uk/en/family-and-care/becoming-a-parent

Great tips! Thank you so much.

I'm very happy with second hand and use freecycle, olio and facebook marketplace. I'm also lucky to have a sister with a toddler looking to pass on lots of hand me downs so not expecting buying things before March to put too much of a dent in our savings.

Nappy's are a biggie- we've got some free packs from Emma's/ Bounty for newborns. I've looked up our local nappy library just now and for new parents they recommend skipping the newborn stage and getting a sample pack once baby is 10lb. Once you've tried this you also qualify for a £30 cashback voucher from the council to stock up :)

Sadly it seems our local sling bank has stopped running but I'll keep an eye out for a revival.

We have overpaid our mortgage this year until December so hopefully that does put a break or a reduction in a good light.

In terms of a little extra money I've just downloaded Roamler for some out and about paid tasks.

There are a few apps out there that can help you with budgeting and planning. I just saw an advert for one today on FB that was talking about planning for child costs that looked interesting. www.facebook.com/Pennyworthfinancial

There used to be some online sling libraries so well worth a look. I hired a couple (£8 a fortnight plus p&p)., Found a style I liked then bought one secondhand. It cost £20 and has been used non stop for the last 7 years.

Aldi nappies are fine and I think also award winning. Cut back on things like takeaways now, don't wait till baby is born. Freeze meals for when baby is tiny, not yet but in Jan and Feb. Bolognese, casseroles, curries etc. Easy then to just add pasta, potatoes or rice. When baby is here you will be too tired to go out as much as before baby so that will save money. Get a list of ideas that family and friends could buy you. My I laws bought cot, nappy change unit, chest of drawers and wardrobe. My sister bought 2 hooded bath towels, changing mat and portable changing mat. Make a wish list.