Trying for a baby next year - maternity leave?

memoryoftrees

Hi

It's a WWYD.

Next year I am going to try for a baby which I am very excited about. For various reasons, although I would love and adore to have two children this may be my only shot so I desperately want to take full twelve months maternity leave which obviously leaves me in a position where I need to have enough savings to cover the period where I'm bringing in no money at all!

Did anybody else take twelve months and how did you manage? How much in terms of savings did you have?

Thank you :j

moneypuddle

There's lots of discussion about this on the Employment board and also the Pregnancy and Trying to Concieve threads here, so have a look there. You might find some of that useful

To work it out, you need to find out what your work will offer you in terms of maternity pay. If it's just the bog standard SMP this works out to be 90% of your full pay for the first 6 weeks, 33 weeks of Stat Mat Pay (approx £135/week) and then nothing for the remaining 13 weeks. However you may be offered an enhanced maternity package, so ideally you need to find this out first.

I'm 7 months pregnant at the moment. To save, we assumed our outgoings would remain the same, so calculated how much we would be short each month (take your usual monthly salary and deduct approx 4.5 * 135 - this is how much LESS you will be being paid each month). We then worked out what we could survive on, so this has led to us planning to save £6k to 'top up' my wage whilst on maternity leave. This should allow me to be off work for 9 months.

We then also saved another £1k for equipment and 'setting up' our house for a nursery, but in reality if you shopped well, and efficiently, you wouldn't need to spend anything like that. Plus people buy you plenty too!

Don't forget you will also be entitled to Child Benefit of I think £20.30/week, and maybe some tax credits too

Good luck. It's a fun and very exciting time

good_vibes

I was speaking to a friend about this,would love the same too .
She said she spoke to HR and asked for her mat payments to be equaled out over her 9 months she had off. So she got nearly the same amount every month. She said this can be done over a year too. But htis depends if your place has a HR to help you with this.

I have aready saved a little pot for when the time comes. Been thinking of treating myself with saved boots points and tesco points. But keep finding myself thinking I will save that for later :P. Silly I know.
Good vibes to you

wendz86

I was off for 11and a half months. The first two weeks were holiday though and she was born on time so went back to work when she was 11 months. We managed ok with me on maternity pay, i did save a bit but not much which helped as well. I did a couple of kit days towards the end which get added onto your pay.

To be honest going back to work i wasn't making that much after travel and childcare so it didn't make too much difference me taking an extra couple of months.

memoryoftrees

Thank you (and thanks for the pointer towards the TTC boards - I am quite new here and still finding my way around! :beer:)
My work offer - let me look this up:

4 weeks: full pay (including SMP)
2 weeks: 90% pay (including SMP)
12 weeks: 50% pay plus flat rate SMP
21 weeks: Flat rate SMP
13 weeks: unpaid

So am I correct in thinking that for the first six weeks I'll actually be taking more home than usual because of the addition of SMP?

The sticky point if that is correct is that after four and a half months when I'll just be on SMP (is that about £100 p/w?) and then the 13 weeks of course.

Ideally I'd love to time things so that I can have my baby in August! I am a teacher so that would mean I could build the summer holidays into my maternity leave! But rarely are things as straightforward!

SqueekyMouse

Remember to take into account that although you'll be spending money on various baby bits, once your baby is born your lifestyle may change quite a lot. You may find yourselves going out less, so save a lot of money you'd have otherwise spent at the pub/restaurant/cinema etc.

Of course having a baby doesn't mean an end to these things and you can certainly take you're baby with you when you want to go out, but for me anyway they became much less important and we saved a packet

I was made redundant on mat leave and my LO is now 12 months. We manage (just) on my DH's wage, tax credits and child benefit and haven't needed to dip into our savings. Although we have a very generous family who bought the pram, car seat, cot, loads of toys and clothes as gifts.

We also buy 90% of our DD's toys and books from charity shops and car boot sales. I only buy her clothes in the sales and if I see a good bargain, I don't mind buying a few years in advance if we can afford to that month so we save money in the long term

GobbledyGook

memoryoftrees wrote: »

Thank you (and thanks for the pointer towards the TTC boards - I am quite new here and still finding my way around! :beer:)
My work offer - let me look this up:

4 weeks: full pay (including SMP)
2 weeks: 90% pay (including SMP)
12 weeks: 50% pay plus flat rate SMP
21 weeks: Flat rate SMP
13 weeks: unpaid

So am I correct in thinking that for the first six weeks I'll actually be taking more home than usual because of the addition of SMP?

The sticky point if that is correct is that after four and a half months when I'll just be on SMP (is that about £100 p/w?) and then the 13 weeks of course.

Ideally I'd love to time things so that I can have my baby in August! I am a teacher so that would mean I could build the summer holidays into my maternity leave! But rarely are things as straightforward!

No, you won't take more home at any point. Your employer will be making up your wages so you'll actually be getting SMP + top up = Same as normal pay, rather than Full pay + SMP.

The current rate is £135.45 a week.

memoryoftrees

Wah! But thank you, that really clarifies things! :rotfl:I was all excited at first thinking I would have a freebie!

So then when on SMP, I assume I can call it £150 p/w including child benefit? It'll be tight, certainly - I'll have to make sure I've got a pot saved

ViolaLass

memoryoftrees wrote: »

Thank you (and thanks for the pointer towards the TTC boards - I am quite new here and still finding my way around! :beer:)
My work offer - let me look this up:

4 weeks: full pay (including SMP)
2 weeks: 90% pay (including SMP)
12 weeks: 50% pay plus flat rate SMP
21 weeks: Flat rate SMP
13 weeks: unpaid

So am I correct in thinking that for the first six weeks I'll actually be taking more home than usual because of the addition of SMP?

The phrase 'including SMP' is a clue there.

SqueekyMouse

memoryoftrees wrote: »

Thank you (and thanks for the pointer towards the TTC boards - I am quite new here and still finding my way around! :beer:)
My work offer - let me look this up:

4 weeks: full pay (including SMP)
2 weeks: 90% pay (including SMP)
12 weeks: 50% pay plus flat rate SMP
21 weeks: Flat rate SMP
13 weeks: unpaid

So am I correct in thinking that for the first six weeks I'll actually be taking more home than usual because of the addition of SMP?

The sticky point if that is correct is that after four and a half months when I'll just be on SMP (is that about £100 p/w?) and then the 13 weeks of course.

Ideally I'd love to time things so that I can have my baby in August! I am a teacher so that would mean I could build the summer holidays into my maternity leave! But rarely are things as straightforward!

Ah you mentioned holidays, that reminded me that while you are on mat leave you accrue your normal holiday entitlement, and then you are allowed to take them all as a block at the start or end of your mat leave. This would mean that you could make your mat leave last about 13 months, where you would be paid for the last month (ish). Or you could have 11 months of mat leave followed by your month of paid holiday to make upto the full 12 months. Hope this makes sense.

moneypuddle

To be honest I don't know how people do it without savings, but plenty do. I guess it depends what your wage is before. If dropping to £400-£500 / month isn't a big loss, it'll be fine. If you earn a lot more than that, I would imagine it can be a bit of a shock!