self-employed mums-to-be

[seasister]

I'm self-employed (a freelance communications person). I have been for 15 years and now I'm pregnant at 40, it's the first time I've ever stepped out of the job market (even though I've not always worked full time so I can do creative projects).

I'm a bit freaked by it, to be honest. I don't know how long a maternity leave I'll take, but whatever it is will be a longer break than I've ever had. I'm scared all the other freelancers out there will jump into my grave and leave me unable to get work for some time, especially in this climate.

Plus the usual fears of going from staunch independence to depending on (lovely) partner; and issues that affect self-employed like, we want to move, will I be discounted by the mortgage company if I can't show income...all these sorts of issues...

I'm interested to hear from other self-employed pregnant women/mums. Just to hear how it was, the pros and cons, I suppose and any bits of advice!

Thanks,

Sorry I can't help but posting to bump the post and also to ask similar advice.
Me and my DH both are self employed and I am scared on how he will cope without my help and what I can get. We are a ltd company and VAT registered so scared enough about the 20% VAT increase as many non vat registered companies and freelancers will already offer the same at a cheaper price that with a screaming baby to look after I am really scared we will lose everything.

I can't really offer advice, but I'm in a v similar position by the sound of things (self employed, 38 years, pregnant with 1st....) - and also chief 'bread winner', I earn more than twice what partner does.

It's tricky - I've done endless sums involving savings and maternity allowance (you know about that, right?) to see how long I can take off before things get very tight. And what I need is a crystal ball to let me know how I will feel when I have an actual live baby, and at what point I'll be able to take on work and how....That freelance anxiety about being out of the market is a real bugger, isn't it.

Only thing I do know is re: mortgages and self employment atm is that the lender will almost certainly want to see 'statements of account' from HMRC for the last couple of years, showing how much you've earnt for real, as it appears on your tax return. So if you are getting a mortgage, obviously it's better to show them years where you've worked full time rather than years which have involved maternity 'time off'. This might be something to factor in to plans about when to move.

(the only other thing I can share is how much I have to bite my tongue sometimes when pregnant friends with PAYE jobs complain about maternity leave, when they're on full pay and then half pay AND have a job to go back to at the end of it! AND sick pay for bad weeks during pregnancy....I have to remind myself the grass is always greener etc, and there's plenty worse off than me. Which sometimes works...)

I leapt at this thread for advice as I'm in a similar position too. I was PAYE for my first pregnancy and had all the security that goes with it, but this time I'm picturing myself back at work within a few months just to keep my hand in, before someone else nabs the work! Hope someone turns up here who's been through it all and come out fine.

What I want to know is - when I'm claiming maternity allowance, what if a payment comes in for some work I've done previously (you know how slow some people are to pay up)? I'm hoping and praying that this won't look like I'm still in paid work and will lose/have to pay back my allowance. Does anyone know how this works out? Is it just accepted that self-employed people may continue to get some payments even whilst they're on maternity?

Thanks both - good to know I'm not alone!

It is tricky - I've been saving as much as possible and not doing badly (touch wood, I have work until I go on maternity leave, otherwise zap, there goes the savings) and I think £121/week or whatever the statutory allowance is, isn't too bad (I'm not the primary bread winner. Partner will sort mortgage and main bills while I'm off, so given that I won't have a life, it should be cheap(ish)!

But I agree with Barkfox - I don't have any clue about what I'll feel like, when I'll want to go back to work - and what kind of baby I'll have which will surely impact on those decisions. But the anxiety about taking the foot of the gas is very real; but what can you do? You have to make changes sometime and have faith that all those years of experience and skill building means something.

I know what you mean about PAYE and the whingers! But I've never been PAYE and I reckon that the pros always outweigh the cons, and that freelancers have a survival instinct and a way of forward thinking that really helps - especially during times like this

MadasaChatter - easy to say, but try not to worry too much. In my experience my companies/clients are VAT registered so the bonus of a non-VAT registered worker isn't really a bonus.

My mum keeps saying don't worry - 'Jump and the net shall appear.' Probably good advice to self-employed mums-to-be

That's a really good question PinkDelight - I know that you can't really take on work and get maternity allowance but I suspect that if you can justify the payment as back payment, then you're fine.

I'll ask my accountant and see if he knows anything

I think if your invoices have the correct date you should be ok as we had people paying us for months after we went VAT registered but as the invoice was pre VAT registered they didn't have to pay tax it was confusing but left it to the accountant to sort out and all turned out fine in the end I would expect the same for late payers while you are on Maternity leave.

I have heard conflicting advice about Statutory Maternity Pay some saying you can claim for 36 weeks others for just 6 weeks- rather large discrepency there so if anyone has any more information that would be useful.

I was PAYE for years and didn't appreciate sick leave etc till I went self employed continuing work with the flu is no fun good to see so many people in the same situation but would love to hear the success stories of women who have done it before.

I've never heard that Statutory Maternity Allowance is just for 6 weeks. It's 39 weeks.
Here's the government link
www.dsdni.gov.uk/index/ssa/maternity_allowance.htm

heya, dh and I run our own business and I went back to work 2 weeks after birth, working around naps, in the evening, in the am before the baby woke up etc. it can be done.
I started and updated a thread here which may be helpful?

I'm self employed and had DS 2 years ago. I got Maternity Allowance which at the time was £117 per week, although it has gone up slightly since then.

It might not sound like a huge amount of money, but it is tax free, so you don't have to include it on your tax return, making that years income look smaller (always a good thing) and your tax credits form (making your tax credits payment larger).

You are allowed to work 10 days during your maternity leave, called KIT days. So you can save up all your work to do on one long day which you count as a KIT day. I don't think they check particularly stringently though, they rely on you telling them when you've worked. And when you've used your 10 days, if you want to work some more occasional days I think they reduce your payment pro-rata so your Mat Allowance doesn't stop completely, although you'd need to check that.

As for being worried about losing business, I found having a baby in a recession actually worked quite well. Any business I lost, I would have lost anyway because of the recession, so I had enough to keep me going part time, but would have struggled to get enough work full time. Plus you've got 9 months guaranteed money and extra tax credits while your income is reduced.

Thanks June. Two weeks is remarkable! Will have a good read of your thread. I would feel gipped out of my maternity allowance/time tho, going back so swiftly, but can see you've got to work as a team to keep the business running.

Thanks also for the invoice advice. Thing is, my work's slightly different as I don't always invoice. I write for TV, so sometimes random payments come in for overseas repeats etc. and they'll be dated slapbang in the middle of my maternity. Guess I'll just have to wing it and argue my case. Definitely don't want to be paying back the money I'm entitled to.

Thanks very much for that June2009 - really helpful. It ends last year, unless I'm not getting the most recent updates...how have you found it then?

pinkdelight your business and you are separate entities. It's fine for your business to make money during your maternity leave - I have a shop which was kept open throughout with someone else manning it. What the Maternity Allowance bods are interested in is whether you personally do any work for your company.

pinkdelight - I'm in the exact same position! as you re: royalties/overseas payments here. Same job. I asked about this specifically when I rang the claim line -

And they said it was FINE. Phew. The principle is the same for any business, as CuppaPimms says. If you earn from work you've done in the past, you don't have to declare it, it's not a problem. It's the doing actual work at the same time as claiming MA that's not on.

The 'Keep in Touch' days are something else - basically it's a way of allowing self employed people on MA to do a very limited amount of work, on the assumption that if you can't, it's going to hamper your return to work. So if I was up to half a day's storylining on a development project, say, I'd count is as KIT time. If I got a payment for sales to Albania for something I wrote 5 years ago, it doesn't affect anything.

PS to clarify - when I say 'you don't have to declare' payments you get for work you've done in the past, I mean it won't affect your entitlement to MA. Not that you can hide it from the taxman, obviously.

I didn't know about the KIT days so thanks CuppaPimmsJanice...very helpful

Thanks so much cuppa and barkfox. Really put my mind at rest! The KIT days will be a godsend too - didn't realise how they translated to freelance work till now.

i'm part time self imployed, so not really in the same situation. smp is paid for 39 weeks, up to 11 weeks before the baby is due and you can do 10 days of work with out it affecting your payments. so for the people that are worried about dates, you can have 10 dates during your maternity leave!

i plan on working 1/2 days a month just to stay on top of every thing and make sure people remember who i am! but that could all change once the baby gets here.

what about child care? Are people going to decide how many days they need help with (in whatever form) and then endeavour to fill it with enough work/clients? It's a tough one to get right, because you don't want to be left with too much paid care or too little

And for those intending / or have gone back to work quickly, what sort of care did you have in place? I don't live near my family so that's not an option...

i work from home so am hoping to fill in work around nap times, weekends and evenings when dh is here. and i'll be taking the days whenever work presents its self.

alternatively have you looked at a mothers help? a nanny, baby sitter? just someone who could come in and look after baby for a few hours?

I am a childminder so not quite in the same position as all of you as I can work while I have my baby with me.

I have applied for SMA which you can do after 25 weeks pregnant, if I remember rightly. They base the payment on a period of 16 months which can be PAYE or self-employed. I am entitled to the full amount which is £123 something per week for 39 weeks.

I am only taking 2 weeks off as otherwise my parents will have to find alternative care and I don't know if they will come back. I am not the main breadwinner but need to earn around £1000 a month which is a lot less than SMA and although I have some money to tide me over if I lost too many of my customers for too long I would be in trouble! It is a shame you can't earn a bit and still claim SMA as that would make life much easier for me!

As for coping with not working, I had worked since I was 18 when I had DS and I was terrified of maternity leave and I loved every minute of it. I hated going back to work and leaving him full time, hence now being a childminder! If money wasn't the issue I'd be a SAHM but everyone reacts differently to motherhood so try not to put too much pressure on yourself to go back too soon in case you do find that you love being a mum and don't need what work gives you now. Hope all goes well, it's a really scary thing- I wish I could have longer but it's just not feasible, hoping I bounce back as quick as I did last time!

seasister my las tpost on that threas was quite recent on Mon 21-Jun-10 22:08:27. My daughter is just over 1 yo now.
We have family here but they don't/cannot help either.

seasister if you're lucky enough to have quite a laid back baby, you'll probably find you're able to get quite a lot of work done. I used to plonk DS down on the workshop floor in his babygym and he'd happily play/watch me/sleep. Obviously you have to have more breaks than usual for feeding and nappy changes. I even took him to customers houses when doing quotes. My customers loved seeing a newborn baby, and didn't even mind when he filled his nappy in their living rooms!! I even got given a few extra tips for his moneybox!

It's when they get to about 6 months and become more mobile that it gets a bit difficult. But by then you should have a better idea of what sort and amount of childcare you will need.

Fingers and everything crossed I have a happy, laid back baby. I think that will make or break my self-employment in those early months!!

Hi - I'm self employed and had our 2nd baby 4.5 months ago, and I'm finding it a lot easier than a lot of employed mums - the first 8 weeks or so they're mostly asleep anyway, and after that they're easy enough to plonk on a playmat behind you, or sit on your lap whilst you're on the PC. I've had loads of client calls whilst breastfeeding quietly on the sly, with no-one the wiser. Saying that, baby is now getting to the age where she wants proper interaction when awake, so I think now til c8-9 months (when they can be left for a half-day with a regular carer) are going to be the tricky bits. I think it depends on what type of work you do, and how much of it is face to face.

That's interesting, howdidthishappenthen. I'm a freelance journalist and took six months off with DS1 before he started at a childminder for a day and a half a week. After a year he went up to three days and is now in nursery.

I did try to work during naps when I first went back to work, but his naps were utterly unreliable and I couldn't time phone calls around them. I also found having a newborn a huge shock to my system and I think I'd have struggled to do much work immediately after he was born.

But second time around I'm hoping to keep a small amount of work going - I have just one regular job that I don't want to lose but could do in an hour or two a day. I've been wondering if I'm being unrealistic - but maybe not...