Help! Can someone tell me if I can afford to have a baby??!

[Quodlibet]

We're thinking about TTC in the next year or so, but I'm finding it very difficult to work out what my financial situation would be.

I'm self-employed, my main source of income is from a small company that I co-run, on a project-by-project basis. I would estimate that I probably work and am paid for about 26 weeks/year from this, spread across the year according to our projects. There is no way I would get maternity pay from this company as we are all freelancers rather than employees. I also do other freelance jobs for days/weeks for other organisations if they arise.

I am also doing a PhD and have a small college scholarship which is non-tax deductible, but which would (I think) continue as 'maternity pay' if I were to take a year's maternity leave.

So my question is, what SMP would I be entitled to alongside my scholarship? Can anyone help me? Really grateful for any advice.

I'm freelance and got maternity allowance (different from SMP). You need to find out if those weeks are enough to get it.

[http://www.dwp.gov.uk/advisers/claimforms/ma1.pdf]

Good luck

www.dwp.gov.uk/advisers/claimforms/ma1.pdf

If you are self-employed, you should be registered with HMRC, in which case you will already either be paying class 2 NI contributions or you will have opted for a small earnings exception certificate. Either way you will be entitled to some maternity allowance - the maximum rate if you are paying class 2 contributions, the minimum rate if you hold a small earnings exception certificate:

businessplusbaby.com/2010/09/08/self-employed-protect-your-right-to-maternity-allowance/

Obviously as you are just TTC you've got plenty of time to put things in order to ensure you get the maximum rate of maternity allowance.

Sorry, I have no idea about the scholarship and whether it will continue or not, or how it will affect maternity allowance.

Hope this helps

Frances

Apologies - I broke the link. Here it is again!

businessplusbaby.com/2010/09/08/self-employed-protect-your-right-to-maternity-allowance/

Thanks for your help! I'll see if my college know what happens wrt my scholarship.

You can
because you will
I got my ACCA
then my FCCA between babies
and still do not understand how I lived on so little after having kids
or where the money went before!!!

I think the advantage of being self-employed is that you can probably go back to work earlier in a "gentler" way. Especially if you work from home. I started doing bits of freelance work about 4 months after having our youngest child - 1-1.5 days per week while DH/my mum/nearest available adult looked after her and brought her in for feeding etc.

You can also get keep in touch days, I think you can claim about 10 if you are self-employed and you are not taxed on these days. I used mine towards the end of maternity leave to start off new contracts/get back into working again.

How do the keep in touch days work if you're self-employed?

You are supposed to tell them which days you worked as KIT days, although in reality nobody chased me up about them. Also it's best to save up a few jobs and do them on the same day, as it counts as one KIT day whether you work for 15 minutes or 23 hours.

Maternity Allowance is tax free though, which is good for your tax return and also tax credits, as you will have little declarable income but still get your £120ish a week to live on.

Thanks for all this advice. Yes I can see the advantage hattyyellow of being able to ease yourself back in.

MA still seems horribly unmanagable on its own though - my share of the rent and CT alone is more than that per week! I guess people just find a way to manage.