How do parents afford maternity leave?

Emmzi

lynzpower wrote: »

Im getting criticised a bit for being to responsible and of course "if you worried about how to pay for kids youd never have them" which I agree with, but how on earth can we survive, 3 of us on only 1k a month, when our rent is 758 ( could not get much cheaper realy in london, this is a 2 bed house which is a bargain/ needs repairing) otherwise it would be studio flat time when we might be able to get one for 675, but we also have a dog so not ideal at all.

I just cannot see a way round this, but OH reckons Im being negative

Lynz,

you *always* find a way to do things. You're our star for it! And I look forward to reading about your new childminding business.

Spendless

We managed because we had both had our own house when we met and had never got used to a 2 salary household. I can only echo the advice of saving now to account for the shortfall later.

lynzpower- I hope this doesn't come across as being rude but would your OH not find a job earning at least £13K in a cheaper area? I'm guessing from your post you've already had a play with figures on www.entitledto.co.uk

Lillibet- Is it your old job you are returning to?

jbbonce

I think you have to face up to the fact that you can't have everything you want all at once.

DH and I lived in a swanky part of Brighton, but we had no money to do anything and we lived in a ground floor studio flat.

We realised that we would be happier living somewhere more boring and grim, but with money to spend and better job prospects.

Because we moved to the midlands, where no-one wants to be, we live in a 2 bedroomed house with a garden in a quietish village for the same amount of money as the bedsit. We have gone from minimum wage jobs to averagely low-paid jobs, just by removing ourselves from such a competitive job market.

We are now expecting our first baby in december and i have no plans to go back to work until we have had all the children we want to have and they have all started school full time. My husband only earns £14500, but with that and tax credits, and living fairly OS, we will be able to manage.

I think if you really want to have kids/be at home with them, you can if you are willing to give something up instead. we will probably never be able to buy a house, have swanky holidays or buy branded clothes, but to us, having a family takes precedence.

Aoife's_mum

hello

Congratulations - hope your pregnancy is going smoothly. You are def doing the right thing by thinking about this now. I was in the fortunate position of both having a good wage so we saved like mad and are now living off our savings. We also moved house just after I had my second, and upped our mortgage a bit to give us some extra savings.

A mortgage is (I believe!) the cheapest way to raise a bit of extra money, so might be worth doing a bit more research into this - maybe try again with your mortgage lender, or go to a mortgage broker or post on the mortgage board here and see if you have any wiggle room? Of my friends in the same situation, a couple have gone onto interest only mortgages for a while, so not quite a payment holiday, but cuts the bills a bit. Some have borrowed money, from relatives, or the bank. Some, like us, increased their mortgage, or the term of the mortgage, which will also decrease payments.

As some of the previous posters have said, it's really not for long - the time just flies by - you can change the mortgage back when you can afford more. And life is a lot cheaper when you are not working.

I hope it works out for you, and hth.

Carmina_Piranha_3

jbbonce wrote: »

I think if you really want to have kids/be at home with them, you can if you are willing to give something up instead. we will probably never be able to buy a house, have swanky holidays or buy branded clothes, but to us, having a family takes precedence.

fair enough (i quite like living in the midlands by the way ) but we don't know how much the OP has to pay for housing costs. in my midlands town you wouldn't get rent much cheaper than getting a mortgage (my sister pays £750 pcm in rent for her house, our mortgage is under £600 because out poky little midlands shoebox is only worth a hundred thousand). so buying the house at least gives you options for getting cheaper credit or remortgaging if needs be.

we don't know the OP's housing costs. i'm a stay at home mum but i know some people whose mortgage cost alone is almost as much as my husband brings home each month - we wouldn't be able to manage if our mortgage was so high so i suppose i would have to go to work if we'd not been lucky to get a house cheaply, or if we had too many children to fit into the shoebox.

assuming you get under 66k is it? a year then you'll get the family element of tax credit which is usually £547 per year but it doubles for the first year so that's an extra £500. if your joint earnings are under i think it's 26k (you could estimate them for the current financial year to get this year's money taken into account with the first £100 or so of maternity money not being counted, rather than your normal salary) then there's a £500 maternity grant too.

i gave up work when i had my baby and although it's not very MSE we got an overdraft. we try not to let it get too large but for us it's worth doing because we both really wanted for me to be a stay at home mum. that could be an option for you during your maternity leave, then repay it later on. we also remortgaged recently, stuck the overdraft onto the mortgage instead. i'll probably get slated for that.

as for paternity leave, well we simply couldn't afford it. my in-laws paid husband a week's salary as a baby gift to us so he could have a week off without it affecting our finances, that was really generous of them.

if you are going back to work then assuming your salary will more than cover the childcare costs you could always look at it long term and go into debt for a while while telling yourself that it will be repaid once you are back at work.

densol_2

The 90% of pay is actually an average of the pay paid between the 17 and 25th week if I remember rightly. Now if you have the chance to do overtime in that period and the money is actually paid in your wages over that period you get it paid again at 90% when you go for the 6 weeks.

I remember I had a job that paid varying incomes. I worked like a trogen in that 8 week period, and my employed had to pay it all again when the 90% maternity pay was worked out.

He gets it back off the government in any event so he did not lose out.

Example : Wages £100 per week - 90% = £90.

In weeks 17- 25 I work extra hours every week so my wages average £150 each week in that period. Only wages actualy paid count.

Thus when it comes to working out 90% = £135. Paid for 6 weeks!

emma_b_4

congratulations on your pregnancy!!
i left a job paying 17k a year two years ago to train as a paediatric nurse on a 6k bursary, so i now what its like to have to make cutbacks! i then fell pregnant and i am due in 6 weeks so the bursary will have to strecth for another year before i start working. some people say i am lucky to have a year off, which i am, but i am taking it on more or less stat ma pay for the full year! the bursary pays me £490 a month - and some months are five weeks which is hard but we do manage.
i do keep having panics about how we will manage when 2 become three but we do it like this;
hubbys wage pays all bills in the "DD account" and we "live off" my wage ie food, petrol, and any expenditures. we dont have many nights out, we have one holiday per year - paid for if i can find work temping - and we share a car. we use online banking and i keep a really close eye on what we spend, checking it all the time.

my parents keep reminding me that they coped on an awful lot less and we are fortunate - and also that we will never get the time back with our baby so enjoy it!


good luck with thepregnancy and hope you are feeling well - at 14 weeks i was sooooooooooo sick its laughable now!

[Deleted User]

I must adit i am going to struggle a wee bit. I am very very lucky as I get 26 full pay then a further 13 at SMP. Trouble is my mortgage is almost the whole of my OH wages so I can't not work. We are trying hard to save so that I can take the full 9 months but it is looking increasingly unlikey this will happen and I will only take the 6. I know i am so so lucky to even be in that position.

I have kinda worked out that If I take hols from 11th December - 30th then start my maternity on 31st Dec It gives me full pay till end June, then IF we can manage on SMP I get till end sept. then I will have 25 days hol to take which hopefully will mean I can have 2 days a week off till the end of the year which should make the transition to going back full time easier.

I dont know how I am going to feel RE going back to work - I might want to stay home but point is I can't afford to. Simple as that. I guess I will just have to make do. I am getting a lot of second hand things which is great anad the only thing I want to buy really is a cot new. And perhaps a car seat. Everything else i dont care!

benbenandme

Lynz - I know everyone says "you'll manage somehow" but it really is true!! When ds was born OH was earning £22K and I went back part-time when he was 6 months old. It was fine, we managed ... then he decided he didn't want to do the whol family thing anymore and left us, paying minimal maintenance as set by the govt. God knows how I coped cos if I'd known that before hand I don't think I would ever have had ds, but I manage fine, mainly thanks to the guys on here!! My income is now approx £12k and yes I'm fortunate that my mortgage is only £60k but it was £125k when he left, I downsized and am completely happy noe. It is ds 4th birthday today and I am happy and financially we're doing fine!!

Lillibet_2

Spendless wrote: »

Lillibet- Is it your old job you are returning to?

No, I took my years maternity leave then was offered voluntary redundancy at the end which I grabbed with both hands, as well as getting paid for a years worth of accrued benefits:D I had a further year not working but still living on the old budget & supplementing hubbys income by £250-300 per month as planned, then 2 months ago I saw a fab local little job advertised, only 11.5 hours a week receptionist for a vet & to be honest I could do it standing on my head but the hours are perfect as it's evenings so no childcare & the money is just enough to equal out the old budget. We used about half of the remaining money we had saved/from VR to do a couple of repairs to our house & the rest is in savings:D