Maternity Leave - what do I need to save?

clairec79

Princess_Coupon wrote: »

The baby element ends on the 5th of April I'm afraid

Which is why I said I get most of it as I go back to work the end of April, my baby was born in October - I probably should have made it clear to the OP though

ema_o

If you have a pension through work you might find they make the payments for you during part of maternity leave (mine do for 6 months).
As said above, think of what outgoings could decrease. You won't be saving for your maternity leave, so you'll have £300 less a month to save, you might also decide to take cheaper holidays / cheaper presents the year you are off so not need to save all of £100 towards that.

We are overpaying our mortgage a bit at the moment which we'll stop when I go on maternity leave - if there is anything spare I will over pay but would prefer the money spare while I'm not earning, suspect this one will take a hit while paying for childcare as well!!

Thanks for the advice about Paternity leave lauren - I'd not got my head around this before now!

FatVonD

twi1ight wrote: »

I think a previous poster had a good idea. Work out how much you need to survive while on SMP and then aim to save the shortfall so you know you'll have the bills covered. This is what I'm planning to do. Eg I need £900 for food and bills but SMP is £500 so I want to have at least £400 x 9 if I want to have 9 months on SMP. The way I plan to save it is to start living on that amount now (spend £900 on bills + food) so that I can save the rest and get used to surviving on less so it's not such a shock when mat leave starts (think I'll a big enough shock in having a child!).

Unfortunately I don't think you can split the leave between parents. Some countries do and even encourage it. I vaguely remember murmerings on the news though bit thought it was all just ideas. Could be wrong.

That's what I did. While I was pregnant I saved enough for an extra 3 months maternity leave as well as paying off the cost of my IVF treatment. I ate healthily but I didn't go mad buying baby things (most of DS's stuff was second hand), if I was ever tempted I'd think 'what does this baby want more, a cute babygrow or his mum at home with him for longer?'

In the end I sold my house and didn't go back to work for 4 years (never underestimate how you're going to feel about that baby once it's here!)

twi1ight

FatVonD wrote: »

'what does this baby want more, a cute babygrow or his mum at home with him for longer?'

Ahhh, that's lovely. I'm going to remember that. Thanks FatVonD

bubblybee

Hi guys,

Thank you so much for all your replies. They are really helpful. I think I need to sit down and work out what I will need excluding the savings I am making at the moment. We are pretty good in terms of not being extravagent when we focus on it - we did it to save for the house - even though our deposit was only 10% in the end.

I like the idea about the shared paternity pay. I will definitely look into that more. Unfortunately my mother lives an hour away and is nearly 70. My OH's parents live 5 hours away so not so helpful. Not talking holidays is fine. we didn't do it when we were saving for the house and last year we only had one because we only had to pay for flights. I just thought it would be nice to have one this year.

Anyway, thank you again for your responses. If anyone else has additional experiences and suggestions I would welcome hearing them.