12-24 weeks pregnant (part 3)

time2deal

I get it Peonie.

So long as (Money needed from sunny day savings * 2) is greater than total sunny day savings sounds like you have enough money to me!

However, are you sure you have considered all your expenses? Plus do you get SMP for a second baby without going back to work? Or are you thinking you will go back to work between them.

We are in a strange (lucky) situation with money. I had critical illness cover and got a payout when I was diagnosed with cancer.

(As an aside - GET CRITICAL ILLNESS INSURANCE if you can afford it! It's cheap and since something like 1 in 6 of us get cancer it's good value and makes a massive difference if you get sick.) :money:

It does mean we have some freedom so I can take a year, but I don't really ever want to go back to my city job... I need to think about re-training or setting up a new business while I'm on Mat leave. All while also moving to Australia. I sense next year will be quite busy!

Peonie

Hmmm, did it also make it confusing as I wrote the calculate the same way I would in a spreadsheet and that the bullet points were meant to explain parts of the calculation?

Tea, sorry if I've freaked you out. Last year Mr P decided to become self-employed and had to build a business from scratch so I had to take on a lot more of the financial responsibility. I thought I did not have enough funds to cover this maternity leave, this is why I'm in such shock now and am questioning if I have calculated it right.

Peonie

T2D you've made me realise that that part 2 is wrong as the end figure would be negative, it was:

(Money needed from sunny day savings * 2) - total sunny day savings = credit for IVF pot.

But should be:

Total sunny day savings - (Money needed from sunny day savings * 2) = credit for IVF pot.

Thank you I'll change the original post as well.

I think I would go back to work, again least for a few months before going on maternity leave but will have to work out the timing so I would get SMP. Mr P would like a gap between having a second but I know we can't leave it long.

I have no idea if I've covered everything. I certainly had not calculated what an impact SMP would make! I tried to keep the 'current costs' to bills and not a weekend away or buying a new sofa, etc. I have given the budget quite a bit of room beyond decorating and buying what we need for the baby - I hope. I should probably include the cost of paying for the baby to have separate injections (where the usually come combined) as that's something I want to do, and any baby or new mum classes/groups I may want to go to.

Next year sounds very exciting for you.

teaandcakeordeath

You've not freaked me out Peonie. I can do that all by myself. Lol. Ideas so far are:
*sell a kidney.
* I could sell my car but 1. It's crap- prob worth at best (i.e. A blind buyer...) £1500 private. Trade buyer offered me £500 which I found hilarious... 2. I need it for work as I work on-call and need to get into work at stupid hours.
* get a second job until september doing something like care work. Not sure that's even an option as pretty sure most care agencies wouldn't willingly take on a 20 week pregnant woman for at best 18 weeks work when she won't be able to do lifting.... Mind you could deliver pizzas or something.
* figure out if the obese cat is actually worth its weight in gold...
* see what repayment holidays are available to me. I'm not hopeful- I have two loans and a mortgage, if these were postponed for the mat leave I reckon the money *might* last (as long as bf goes to plan and I don't eat...)
* panic.

I'm boss with money me....

monty-doggy

Tea and cake if you are sole earner you will be able to claim income support and mortgage support allowance while you are on nta leave, depending on your income of course. Check the benefits checker on here or entitledto.co.uk
Mortgage companies prob won't give holidays now, the rules for lending got very strict last week. I've spoken to my lender and I'm able to switch to interest only for a max of six months but then they want me to overpay to hake it back up.

I've been worried how we will cope as I've given up work and I was the highest earner. We will get esa until my stat mat allowance kicks in but I'm still £1500 a month short :eek:

We've looked at what savings we can make, our life insurance for two of us with critical cover is £62 a month, this has got to go or switch to death only. I really don't want to cancel it but I can't afford it and it's not forever.

I'm selling my car. It's brand new I only got it in July but we made a huge deposit and were paying it off over two years but that's £250 a month, so I'm selling it and buying a small runaround outright. That's over £300 a month clawed back already.

My oh income will cover all the outgoings including a budget of £200 a month for food and £250 child maintanance for his other three children.
We will then live off my mat allowance and child benefit which is £138+£20.50 a week, plus I have £3000 in savings to tie us over for Xmas and emergencies.

My long term plan is to get a part time job where I earn £700-£1000 a month. This will be our disposable income. I won't need childcare as my mum and his mum will do a day each and he gets two days a week off. I'm thinking I'll do three days.

Yes £1500 down is a lot of money but I won't be spending £200 a month on petrol, over £100 a month on lunches, and all the other crap I buy at work.

And even without my savings I think £158 a week disposable income without buying food is liveable. We won't have as many treats but we will have a precious baby

Also my mother in law has said they will buy us some shopping and nappies each week. I've told her she doesn't have to but she's insisting!

angeltreats

Popping in from the <12 weeks thread

TACOD, you should be able to switch your repayment mortgage to interest only for a bit. Just give RBS a call.

I haven't started freaking out about money yet, but I earn slightly higher than DH and my company only pays ten weeks full pay, then SMP. We have some savings but some of these will be wiped out by a bathroom remodel soon, and DH is due an inheritance (not huge, about £10k which wouldn't cover my lost wages for a year). We also have a holiday in June to pay for. I'm really going to try and ferret away £1,000 per month between now and November but I don't know how much I should be freaking out and fretting about money - like you TACOD I thought this would never happen so never bothered making any financial plans for it!

We will have no help at all with childcare as we live very far from our families, I would like to go back to work three days a week so there will be childcare to pay for. I have no idea how much that's going to cost, but due to the sort of industry I'm in I really do need to be able to keep up, so it's worth making sacrifices for a few years to keep on the career path if you see what I mean. Also even if my salary was mostly paying for childcare I'd still be getting my pension contributions (which are generous) as well as critical illness and life cover and income protection, as we do get good benefits.

Agh so much to think about, I need to put my accountant hat on and start looking at the actual numbers

daisiegg

I feel a bit guilty now reading all your posts about money....realising how lucky I am not to have to worry too much. Hubby is the main wage earner and I only work part time at the moment; my money is just extra. We are not planning on me returning to work probably until any kids we have are all at school. Hubby was made a partner in his firm a few years ago so has pretty good job security - basically can't get sacked. I'm not saying we have piles of cash sitting around (we really don't!) but we will be able to manage on one wage for the foreseeable future. Also baby coming has coincided well with hubby's older child turning 18 this year which means he will no longer be paying child support ( though he will pay money directly to his child for living costs at uni) or, the big one, £15000 school fees a year. Added to which,his child lives really far away and for weekend visits he travels there and stays in a hotel, and the weekend probably costs £300 a time easily. Up until recently he was going every other weekend and has now dropped this to every three weeks, but it is still a big expense that we won't have to worry about by the time the baby is here.

On the other hand - I have absolutely no money of my own saved up or anything so, god forbid, if something went wrong in our relationship and we split up (which I am hoping will not happen!) I would be absolutely scr*wed. I am placing quite a lot of trust in him and our relationship to give up work completely to have this baby - I will be completely reliant on him which is slightly scary. Eek!

Bluebell1000

My maternity pay will mean we're OK until Christmas. After that we might just manage to avoid dipping into savings if DH's rental property actually has a tenant in. We've not had income from that since Christmas, and the last tenant made quite a mess before they cleared out, so it's been costing us money since then We are hoping for a 'yes' from a potential tenant today, fingers crossed!

We are quite lucky that we don't have huge bills really. The biggest is childcare, but when I'm on SMP I will get the £243 childcare vouchers from my employer for free, which will make a huge difference. We didn't want to remove DS from the childminders while I'm on maternity leave, because he wouldn't get his place back. As he's so happy there we didn't want to make changes to his routine if possible.

I also have lots of stuff to sell, so planning to get that sorted and sold over this summer. Firstly to make more room in the house, and secondly to help with the costs!

We went to Belton House yesterday, it's quite frustrating that I just don't have the energy to run around and play with DS. Dad and DH were great though, kept him entertained while I sat and watched.

Counting down the days to my next scan now... not long until Friday!

daisiegg

Feel really worried and tearful today have had a tiny, tiny bit more brown spotting but nothing like the bleed on Thursday. But still just feel really tense and wish I could fast forward to the scan tomorrow. Also threw up my breakfast this morning, have a pounding headache, achey back and bit of an upset tummy, as well as being utterly exhausted to the point of dizziness. I don't feel 'right' Am trying to get 30 mock exam papers marked so I can send them in to school to give to my Year 11s tomorrow as I won't be in all week and it is not fair for them to have to wait another week...but struggling as my head is spinning and back so sore no position is comfy!

Moan, moan, moan...sorry ladies, pity party going on here! I'm sure I will miraculously feel a million times better if (when?) the scan is all ok tomorrow. I hope...

LailaP_2

I am quite lucky that I get 6 months off at full pay but after that I will need to go back to work as we can't afford for me to stay at home. At the moment I work from home a couple of days a week but it's unofficial so I am intending to put in a request to work from home 3 days a week once I've had the baby. I hope that they will be OK with it as my job isn't the sort of job where I need to be in the office. If they say no then god knows what we will do as we can't actually afford childcare but will cross that bridge when we come to it. MIL has said she can do 1 day a week so that will help