Advise Needed

mercman_3

Thanks for all the replies, please keep em coming

This forum is worth its weight in gold


Best regards to all

Pete

margaretclare

Hi

Your midwife will have leaflets showing what's available to be claimed. Ask her!

Aunty Margaret (ex-midwife)

Spendless

margaretclare wrote:

Hi

Your midwife will have leaflets showing what's available to be claimed. Ask her!

Aunty Margaret (ex-midwife)

But in the case of conflicting advise please double check with somewhere like CAB or Maternity Alliance. I say this because my midwife initially wasn't going to give me my MATB1 as i wasn't working.

I had however been working part-time in the first stages of pregnancy (but resigned due to ill-health) and because i had worked 26 out of the 66 weeks before the baby was due and earned more than £30 a week on average i was entitled to some maternity pay.

I knew this so i claimed and got my money. A friend who was due some weeks after me works as a child minder and was told by her midwife she wasn't entitled to anything as she didn't earn enough to pay tax. This was incorrect advice, my friend was entitled to exactly the same benefit as i was. Unfortunately friend beleived midwife over me and lost out : - (

jellyhead

there's a booklet you can get, i think it's called babies and benefits, it comes in the bounty pack that the midwife should give your wife. i think i got mine at the first appointment, but can't remember if the midwife gave me the pack or a voucher to collect it from mothercare, it came with a plastic wallet for keeping my pregnancy notes today :-) you used to be able to get the same leaflet from my post office but i notice they've stopped doing it. it lists everything you can apply for. i didn't know until reading it that i could get maternity allowance. i assume your oh has paid enough tax and is getting SMP from the employer. if the baby is due sept then maybe she's taking it early, 11 weeks before baby is born i think is the earliest, and then returning to work in jan when baby is 15 weeks old and SMP has run out. i'm only 26 weeks pg and am already dreading work and thinking longingly of maternity leave so i think i'll take mine ASAP lol!

assuming you both work full time for at least minimum wage you won't be entitled to the £500 surestart grant or milk tokens. mother gets get free prescriptions and dentist while pregnant and until baby is 1, that's for everyone regardless of income. the midwife should have given wife a form, FW8 i think it's called, to send off for the exemption card. there's no help with opticians fees though, sadly. the other thing everyone gets is child benefit, currently £68 per month as it went up april 2005.

everyone gets nursery funding for a 3 year old child. until then it's tax credits or nothing. this all depends on your joint income and how much the fees are. unless you earn more than around 50 thousand between you you'll get the child tax credit of £545 a year, and the baby element which doubles it for the first year. entitled to website will tell you what you'll get from tax credits, it all depends. we have an income of around 25 between us and all we're entitled to is what i've mentioned above. if you get less than that you'll get more, and might get help with nursery fees.