Starting a family

lottie0311

We are currently trying for a family and i am a bit nervous about finances.

we bring home just over minimum wage salaries at a gross of about £2000. All of our bills, petrol etc come to about £1300.

Based on my £15000 wage and my partners £14500 wage, can anybody give me any ideas about any benefits i might be entitled to?

we dont get anything at the moment, no other dependants etc just me and him, no debt except the mortgage.

kingfisherblue

You will get Child Benefit. For other benefits, more information is needed - for example, wiull you have childcare costs? Are you returning full time, hoping to go part time, or not returning at all?

At the moment, Child Tax Credits have a cut off point of £26000 or thereabouts (joint income) for one child, but I think this increases if you have childcare costs.

You will also get your maternity pay, assuming you meet the conditions. If your company pays enhanced maternity pay, and you don't return, you may have to pay it back, or return for a set amount of weeks before resigning.

Dental work is free for pregnant women and for mothers if their child is under one year old. You are entitled to time off for maternity appointments without having to 'pay it back' to the company.

marisco_2

Have a look at this website www.entitledto.co.uk. If you enter in all your circumstances it will advise you what you are entitled to claim.

RAS

It may be best to work out what you would get once the baby is born using entitledto or www.turn2us.org.uk and then learn to live off that income whilst you are TTC?

Put any extra income aside now to help cover any unexpected loss in income if you are unwell.

Also find out if your company pays any additional materity allowance or if you will have to depend on state support.

lottie0311

great answers, thank you!

heartbreak_star

From what I've gathered from friends who either have or want children, you generally tend to make do and work around things when baby is here.

HBS x

lottie0311

Ive just used the entitled to website and all the comes up other than maternity wages is child benefit of £20.00 a week.

itd probably be different if we paid for childcare eventally, thats just based on while id be off.

Gillyx

From what I'm led to believe, the cut off for the childcare element of tax credits is the same as all other so £26k a year between a couple. I could be wrong though.

Claree__x

lottie0311 wrote: »

Ive just used the entitled to website and all the comes up other than maternity wages is child benefit of £20.00 a week.

itd probably be different if we paid for childcare eventally, thats just based on while id be off.

Same as me unfortunately (currently 6 months pregnant!).

The best thing to do would be to work out how many essential bills you have (remember things like petrol might be reduced if you're travelling less). If these come to more than your OHs take home pay I'd be concerned about starting a family before these are lowered or his wages are increased.

Based on £15,000 you'd take home about £9,786 with just statutory maternity pay. For benefits they disregard the first £2,500 loss of earnings in a year (I think - happy to be corrected) so with your OHs wages you would be just over the threshold for tax credits before paying childcare.

Sorry to be a big party pooper!

Gigglepig

tBH I would be worried too.

Do you have a decent amount on savings to fall back on?
The other thing important to me before starting to try was to have suitable, stable housing.
We also felt it was important that at least one of us had stable employment and could get by for a while if the other lost their job. Poor job security can be really unnerving.

Basically I wanted to be financially stable first, really did not want to have to be worried about not being able to afford if the rent went up, benefits cut, or one of us lost their job.

Kayalana99

My partner is on 15k wage...we have exactly the same outgoings as you (including food and petorl into our £1300...)

I'm on about a 9-10k wage normally but with M/L its worked out about 8k this year.

We get our child benifit same as your entitled to, and an extra £50 a month for tax credits you won't be entitled to but we manage just fine!

Your in a better postion then us here and were not struggling to say least