Maternity money worries

[Mangotango39]

Not sure my reason for posting really.... I suppose just a whinge and get off my chest.

We live an expensive place and maternity pay is really really crappy. The local minimum wage for just 18 weeks and not a smidge more (no 90% for 6 weeks or anything like that). We also don't accrue leave while away on parental.

I am planning on stretching the weekly amount to last a fortnight and the remainder of time we will use savings (total 11 months off)
In a fortnight (when getting maternity pay) after bills, food , petrol and a little accounted for 'just things' we should have about £500 leftover equivalent if my partner works one Saturday and a few extra hours in the week.

We are trying to squirrel away as much money as we can and should have a minimum of equivalent £15,000 saved by the time I go off.

Does this sound doable? I am stressing quite hard as I am just not use to being out off work without a good wage coming in. It's the unpredictability of a house or car emergency throwing us off course when everything is so expensive where we live!

It all depends on what your going are.

Have you got any subscriptions that you could pause and do without for 11 months?
Have you got childcare booked for when you plan to return to work?

I have cut them all off already to save. Called all our providers to negotiate lower rates etc. stopped eating out/takeaways.

I am on 3 waiting lists for daycare place on return yes.

I felt so uncomfortable to face maternity leave without my normal income relying only on my DH's salary and maternity pay. Somehow got through and we didn't even have that much of savings. Also, legally you accrue holiday while in maternity leave.

Will your savings be in addition to the extra £500 a month? Because if so I'd say that's more than enough!

I saved about 5k pocket money with my son and we couldn't live lavishly but it was definitely enough to get us through the 12 months (although I did use a month of annual leave at the end).

I know it's hard adjusting to stat mat leave but you really do make do! X

No one can know, you need weigh up your outgoings bs income...

I for one hated being dependant on my bf for money, especially as I'd always wasn't more.

Someone from my friends NCT class got a credit card especially for Mat leave.

@Olika I am not in the UK - we can't accrue leave while off unfortunately. Those extra weeks would have been great!

@LeopardLover extra £500 per fortnight when being paid Mat and making a weekly payment last a fortnight (18 weeks split meaning I am making it last for 36 weeks) that's IF my partner does overtime. Around £200 spare a fortnight when he doesn't work the extra. This is after all bills, food , petrol and some 'extra' allowance.
Then the savings on top for the remaining time and emergencies.

that's what dp says we will make do and it'll all work out.

@trampoline123 I don't mind relying on DP as we are joint in general but I also earn really well (in my opinion) so it's just such an adjustment . I was thinking about a credit card but I'm not sure if that's temptation to over spend!

@Mangotango39 In this case, you'll totally be fine! You really do just make it work. And it's great food etc is covered in your calculations. The extra is just for your emergency fund - which you hopefully won't need ❤️

Think you’ll be fine - you’ll be more on the ball with outgoings & stuff when you have to be. There’s lots of free classes and things you can make use of too to reduce that outgoing where needed. I came off maternity February and we went into lockdown few weeks later on reduced contract. Freelance work also went out the window with lockdowns so I set up an Etsy which was totally non related to what I normally do and made it a success as some extra money! You’ll be fine.

With 15k savings you should be fine.

I think we used about 10k of savings when I had 6 months off but I earned more than double DH at the time so there was a big shortfall to make up when I was on SMP which is around £700 a month. We could have spent less but we had the savings set aside so didn’t need to cut back too much.

This time round DH is earning much more and we’ve got about 6k worth of savings to top us up to cover 9 months of mat leave, it’s frustrating but doable

Remember OP that this should all be seen as a joint cost. If you haven’t already pooled finances then have a good think about doing so.

All of mine and DH’s income goes into one joint account and all of our spending comes out of it. When I was on mat leave I never had to ask him for money for things the money belonged to both of us.

You have around 4 times what I had saved, you'll be fine. Your lifestyle will change for the duration but it's a small sacrifice for the time with baby, imo. Set yourself a small weekly budget and stick to it. Find free stuff to do - make friends, go to park/walk around city, watch TV, read books, etc. I'm sad we won't have a holiday for a few years as a result of the loss of earnings but there's not a lot we can do about it now!

Yes it's all completely pooled - we don't have seperate accounts and it's been this way for a while. It's just me worrying as he definitely has a more released approach that we will be absolutely fine haha !