What finanicial help is there for staying home?

[NewMum24]

I only have 3months of my paid maternity leave left. Im starting to worry as i im not gonna be able to afford to not have my wages coming in. My partner works so supports us at the moment. I really dont want to go back to work yet. Im loving beeing a mummy!
Did any one else have this worry? How did you cope?

There are things you save money on...not travelling to work (bus, petrol) not needing work clothes. Also you probably won't be socialising out as much so will be saving a bit of money there. Freecycle as MIF says is great. Can you pay the mortgage/rent on your DPs wage & have a bit spare? While kids are young they don't need much spending on them really. I think that probably changes when they get to school age though.

Sorry. Nothing bar tax credits and child benefit. We went down the route of being v.v. broke and cutting out all luxuries etc. so that I could be at home with the kids. Tough but worth it and a decision we chose to make and are happy with. Have to say though that my parents have helped out - esp. a few yrs back when at times we could barely afford the food shopping. amazing what we can cook from a few veg. now though! A scary prospect though to lose a salary. After 1st baby was born i went back for a while til 20 wks pg. with no.2, then resigned. Never regretted it.

nothing beyond child benefit and tax credits no

unfortunately you can either afford it through budgeting carefully or earning a lot or you can't

you need to do some severe budgeting in the next few months to see if you can cope

you could also consider becoming a childminder which brings in money and enables you to stay at home

Precious little.

SAHM - child benefit + tax credits depending on joint income

WAHM - same plus possible working tax credits + a wage + state pension contributions + personal pension contributions

I don't want this to end up the usual old SAHM/WAHM argument I'm just irritated that there is more out there to encourage parents back to work than for them to stay at home. It undervalues the role of a parent IMHO.

How do you work out what your tax and WT credits would be?

I start work next week for 3 days a week and after paying out for childcare I am wondering what will be left!

Nothing except child benefit (tax credits if you are lucky enough to qualify!).

I work freelance adn have done since ds1 was 5 months old.

can we NOT turn this into a sahm v wohm debate- its tedious and i'm fed up with it

Sorry to cause trouble,.
Im getting child tax credit and child benefit. My dp pays the rent. We both have debts from before i fell pregnant.
i guess well have to sit down and work out a budget.
our ds hasnt really cost us anything as we have had hand me downs for everything. we just buy milk and nappys.