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18 weeks pregnant and wondering what benefits we're entitled to???

Hello! This is my first post so please be patient if I'm asking obvious questions!:)

Right here goes...

Myself and my partner are both 25 and we're expecting our first baby next year and I'm starting to panic at how we're going to manage financially. I currently work full time for £15 500 per year and my partner brings home around £18000 (he works overtime so even though his basic is about £15000 he gets more than this). As I haven't been at my company long enough to qualify for full pay for my 6 months maternity leave (I've only been here 2 years and the policy is 5 years) I will only be getting my statutory maternity pay for the time I take off after having the baby.

We have quite a bit in savings and I think (she says optimistically) that we will be ok without my full wage for a while but I think it will be a real struggle when I go back to work as I'm only planning on returning for 3 days. Can anyone advise what benefits we may be entitled to? I know about child benefit, but I'm unsure whether we as a family would qualify for working tax credits or any other type of benefits? Myself and my partner have worked full time since school and university and have never claimed benefits so we're pretty clueless as to how to go about this! My midwife advised us to look at the direct.gov website but I'm still a a bit confused!

Sorry if I'm asking silly questions- I'm blaming my hormones!:rotfl:

(If this is in the wrong place I apologise and can someone point me in the right direction???)

Comments

  • WestonDave
    WestonDave Posts: 5,154 Forumite
    Rampant Recycler
    Best thing to do is go and have a play on entitledto.com - you can put in all your details, change things to see what difference it would make etc, and find out exactly what you'd get.
    Adventure before Dementia!
  • Alfalfa
    Alfalfa Posts: 116 Forumite
    Thanks for the advice, I've had a quick look on the website and put different details in and got different answers so we now have something to think about. Just another quick question with regards to working tax credits. Is it the previous years income that is taken into consideration? If so I doubt we will be eligible next year but maybe the year after???
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