working out return to work salary - Help!

spoongirl

Ok, so I'm a couple of months pregnant and feel I need to start thinking about this now. I'm planning on take off 6 months maternity as this is my first child and not really sure how things are going to pan out.

I'm also thinking that when I do return to work that I will be looking to go back part time. Probably 3 days per week.

My question is, how do I work out what my take home pay will be? Should I just use 3/5'th my current wage, or is it more complicated?

Thanks

Hovel_lady

spoongirl wrote: »

Ok, so I'm a couple of months pregnant and feel I need to start thinking about this now. I'm planning on take off 6 months maternity as this is my first child and not really sure how things are going to pan out.

I'm also thinking that when I do return to work that I will be looking to go back part time. Probably 3 days per week.

My question is, how do I work out what my take home pay will be? Should I just use 3/5'th my current wage, or is it more complicated?

Thanks

Take your current gross yearly salary divide by 5 and then multiply by 3.

You can then put that figure into the income tax checker here to find out your net (take home) pay.

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/tax-calculator/

SqueekyMouse

Has your employer got a personnel department? They'd be the people who could explain this sort of thing and answer any questions you have. They also shouldn't mention the advice they've given you to your line manager, if that concerns you.

However, at some point you've got to speak directly to your boss to ask them to consider your request for reducing your hours. Please be awake that they do not legally have to agree to reducing your hours if the nature of your job requires someone to work full time.

Also, in your situation I would tell your employer you intend to take the full years maternity leave. Then once the baby arrives you can always tell them you're going back earlier. Just because that would look better than saying you're going to take 6 months and then changing your mind to take longer off during your maternity leave. I'm advising this because your feelings may change once the baby's here. Most (if not all) mums I know would rather have the longest maternity leave possible.

Spendless

If you work out your hourly wages by taking your salary divided by 52 then divided by how many hours you work f-time then you could have a play with figures using this site.

http://www.thesalarycalculator.co.uk/

spoongirl

Thanks hovel lady and squeekymouse.

Great suggestion on the 12month reduced to 6 months. There are a number of part time mums at my place of work, fortunately one of them happens to be the office manager/HR lady who is now part time after having her second. So this should be a relitively easy conversation.

The part time return to work is so that I can retain some sanity as I've always worked, even since before I was 16. I do have a fairly responsible job and have a pretty comfortable life as a result. This wasn't always the case as I was brought up in a working class family and left uni with HUGE debts. I worry about going back to the 'no money to fix the car, pay the bills' situation, hence the forward planning.

I'll run the tax calculator thing and see if is comes out anywhere near what I'm thinking.

thanks again

Sambucus_Nigra

SqueekyMouse wrote: »

Has your employer got a personnel department? They'd be the people who could explain this sort of thing and answer any questions you have. They also shouldn't mention the advice they've given you to your line manager, if that concerns you.

Don't believe a word of this - HR is there to support the company, and if you have a conversation with HR, you are speaking to the company not in a private and confidential capacity.

liney

Agreed Sambucus. HR/Personnel are there to keep the company out of court.

claire16c

If you work the same amount of hours each day, then every day you dont work, you essentially loose 20% of your wage before tax.

I agree with the post above about not informing them of your plans to definitely come back at 6 months though, that way you wont be disappointing anyone if you dont. I dont think they are supposed to ask you how long you plan on taking anyway.