Having a baby and maternity/paternity leave.

JPage2307

Hello everyone

My girlfriend and I are expecting our first child (due 8th July) and having never done this before and having never relied on the government or any one else for money I'm a bit concerned as the only person working will be me!

I will give you a brief overview of what's going on without boring you all with the details but basically I am currently on around £24k a year and my girlfriend is on about £16k (so a total of £40k between us before tax) and we've both always worked, I have also been offered a new job which is around £36k a year which involves moving (which we need to do anyway due to the baby). We are already aware that my girlfriend cant take maternity leave until around may, so I am trying to delay the new job/move until then.
My question really is what sort of help would we get financially?
I have read up about maternity leave and getting 90% of pay for 6 weeks and then 33 weeks at £138 or so a week and then read about something else that comes in after 4th april 2015, is this replacing maternity leave?
Basically I'm getting a bit stressed out trying to work out how much money we will have as obviously this will effect the house we get etc and I really need to get an idea of what we will get for maternity/paternity pay and for how long? And also if there is anything else we would be entitled too.

Many thanks
James
P.S. this is the first time I have ever tried to claim anything, and have always worked so have no idea.

Poppie68

You would be better posting this on the Benefits&Tax credits forum...some one there will be able to give you a near enough precise figure.

Timeflies

Hi James - congratulations!

You're right about statutory maternity pay (SMP) - your girlfriend could check her work's policy on maternity pay - they may offer something better than SMP - e.g 3 or 4 months full pay, before reducing down to the normal SMP for the rest of the leave period.

Statutory paternity pay is 2 weeks at £138 a week - again, check with your employer- they may offer something better than this - e.g 2 or 3 weeks on full pay.

You'll also be entitled to child benefit of £20.50 a week.

From April you'd be able to share your girlfriend's maternity pay. E.g. if she went back to work after 6 months, you could be paid "her" £138 a week for the next 3 months, if you took leave from your work.

Obviously in your case, your own wage is higher than hers, so your total income would be less if it was you that took up the statutory leave.

On the mortgage front, lenders really differ in how they treat maternity leave, so do shop around. Think carefully about whether you're stretching yourselves though, babies bring a lot of unforeseen expenses - why not do a budget of income and expenses for the first year after bay is born, and then the year after that, based on what your planned working patterns will be?