How do you fund your maternity leave?

[Gangle]

Am 25 weeks and just trying to work out how much maternity leave I can afford to take. I took 7 months last time and would ideally like to take 9 months this time but if we decide to keep our nanny on then I may need to go back to work before then. I get full pay for 12 weeks at full pay, 4th month at 60%, 5th month at 20% then SMP for the rest. DH could probably afford to support me, with cutbacks and at a stretch, but may be taking a different job newxt year with much lower pay so I may have to fund the rest from savings etc. Just wondering how most people fund maternity leave. There is nothing more important I can think of spending my savings on than funding time off with my children. Keeping the nanny on is a luxury (still not decided on this but definitely a possibility) but it's a nanny share and the other family are also having a 2nd child and we would look to continue the arrangement for another few years so in the long term is probably more cost efficient to keep her on than to try to find someone else when it's very difficult to find a nanny share that works well. Any thoughts?

Would the nanny want to stay in the share with 4 children? I have a friend who's currently in the same situation, looks after two toddlers in a share and both mothers are pregnant. 4 children under 4 will be a nightmare, she's looking for a new job.

No, the older two would go to nursery but we might ask her to cover an hour here at there at the end of the day or do the occasional pick up as both the toddlers know her plus I am not sure if I would send my son to nursery 3, 4 or 5 days a week - if 3 days I may ask her to have 3 on the other 2 days, if this is workable. Anyway, she has said she is happy to have 3 but we all agree that 4 is too many and the ages too different. We would renegotiate salary of course.

How much is the nanny compared to a nursery or CM? If it is a lot and you switch you may be able to save enough to stay off on mat leave longer.

Everyone funds their mat leave differently, it depends how dependent you are on your wage or whether you can survive on just DH's wage.

Gangle - that's a very decent maternity package, you must have a generous employer!

I am a civil servant, the package isn't too bad but not great, so I have saved up £4000 to support myself through 10 months of mat leave. Think we'll be ok for covering bills and mortgage, but wanted to make sure I had money for myself without having to ask dp all the time. No holiday next summer!

Took 10 months as we will have to use a nursery/childminder full time after that, so I figured the longer I was off the better really.

What an amazing maternity package! I am self employed so its savings and maternity allowance (£120 a week). We still need to add tax credits and child benefit into the mix but imagine that wont masses of differnce.

Its our first child so we sat donw and had a good look at our finances a few months ago. We are pooling our incomes and have enough together (and low enough outgoings) that we dont go into the minus each month. Theres a little individual spending money left once we take care of the mortgage, bills, food etc.

The one off extra baby outgoings are coming from savings (and hopefully some gifts!). We are going to put both our incomes into one pot and then take out individual spending money from now on, even when I go back to work, otherwise I would worry about a growing income gap between us. Its quite hard to suddenly stop earning, we have always earnt more or less the same and I can see that with childcare etc falling mainly to me thats all set to change. But I was really worried about being given an allowance and knowing I would find it hard to buy anything for myself from 'household' money...

ON current plans I take 9-10 months off, then plan to go back part time with baby at childminders.

I'm going to be funded just by Maternity Allowance anyway - but one of the great things about being poor already is that the loss of income won't make much difference to us.

no way can we survive in dh wage + smp so think i will end up back at work when baby is 2-3 months old
this is not what i wanted but unfortunately with dh out of work most of this year we are in debt and no way of saving so no choice

We'll actually be moving in with family for a year or so when I'm on maternity leave. I'm incredibly lucky with my maternity benefits, I get 6 months full pay then an additional 13 weeks of SMP.

If we were to stay put in our house, I'd have to go back after the 6 months full pay stops, unless we managed to save enough to cover bills for a month or so more. I'm the main earner, if I wasn't, I think we'd be staying in our house.

6 months full pay? Bloody hell - the stuff dreams are made of! Dare I ask which sector people work in?

I'm a teacher , I consider myself to get paid well enough but I actually did think the maternity might be a little more than it is, especially as it's the only job I know of where you don't accrue any paid holidays to tack onto the beginning/end of mat leave.

Suppose I'm lucky in that we bought a very modest-sized house 3 years ago, so our mortgage is quite manageable. We run two cars, but fortunately we've finished paying for them both.

Not sure how I feel about not earning, have worked since I was 16 and always supported myself.

I feel really awful about how much I have taken my maternity for granted now, most appear to get same as me around here and I had taken it as the norm. I feel really lucky after reading this thread.

I work for public sector (health service) in Ireland. I am entitled to 26 weeks paid maternity leave (so 6 months), where my employer pays half and social welfare top it up to my full pay (from my PRSI).

Im then entitled to take a further 16 weeks unpaid if I want to - we are definately going to - we were trying to figure out how the hell we would afford it, were saving every cent to try fund it but since the budget here on Wednesday, the bstards have hit the public sector with cuts for the second time this year, dh is also a public sector worker and we're now down a total of 900 euro a month (not* high earners at all btw) so I simply cant afford to go back to work at the minute anyway (cant afford not to work either so dont know what we'll do!) itll be really, really tough but we are prepared to make huge sacrifices (and have done) to be able to do this.

When dd was born, the allowance was 18 weeks paid and an additional 8 weeks unpaid.

(sorry, am rambling now)

I will be accruing annual leave and public holidays while Im on maternity leave too so will be taking that at the end, Im due to go on maternity leave on the 8th January 2010 and by my calculations wont be going back til the 1st of December 2010 and will still have 10 days annual leave left to take until the end of March 2011 in case I need to.

Have to support myself from my savings and SMP. My empoloyer (male dominated health profession) pay the min 6 weeks at 90% then remainder of SMP 123 odd per week.

I am on my own so the rest will come from my savings to pay morgage and all other outgoings. We get no pennies to help from dd's dad, he has been paying for half to the CM but nothing more.

Dd is just turning 3 so will start playgroup soon but sessions not funded until after Easter but obs a lot lower than paying my CM (though still having to pay her a retainer each month)

I am determined to take the 37 weeks this time as dd was only 5 months when I had to go back to work last time and for me it was too soon.

It is a very expensive time!!

Good luck

Oops, dd is turning 3 the same week splodge is due meant to say.

Carrielou - was going to say exactly the same thing - allowance was 18 weeks plus 8 unpaid when dd was born and she was 2 weeks "late" so I had to go back when she was just over 5 months and I really, really was not ready. Am taking the full allowance this time as although it'll be hard I cant see too many opportunities to take it again. Cant believe Ill be off for almost a year!

And I feel really bad for gizzy - hope all goes very well for you x

ermm....lets just say the state takes most of the slack, and tax credits/ child bens exceed my income (i am sole earner)

we ae still going to be £150 pcm worse off for 6 months. we're just going to have to be very careful with the cash.

We've taken DD out of nursery (bar 2 mornings a week). With the money saved from that + not putting anything in savings + money saved from me not working (patrol, parking etc) + being very careful = 56 weeks off (49 of mat leave, and the rest of annual leave). I'm fortunate that I get 8 weeks full pay, 16 weeks 75% pay and then SMP/unpaid. I'll also continue to get childcare vouchers from my employer once SMP-only starts, which we will bank for when I go back. I've got a spreadsheet with a budget worked out, and we transfer a set amount each week into a savings account whilst I'm being paid to help cover the SMP/unpaid time. At the moment, we're more or less on target (been off 7 weeks.) With this being our second, we really haven't had to buy much. By far the most expensive has been a new bed/drawers/wardrobe set for DD. All of that stuff has come out of savings.