Mat leave pay
Show your support
Can’t you save to cover those months? I’m on half of that and trying to save between £300-£500 a month to cover statutory but won’t be able to take a full yr probably. X
Do you have a partner? They take your household income into account. Chances are though that your household earns too much to get benefits. We just had to save in advance.
@Ann-Marie thank you this is really helpful to know
@Inesse unfortunately I have a lot of bills and outgoings so it’s hard for me as I have no other financial support at the moment
@Caroline yes but we aren’t married x
It doesn't matter if you're married or not, just that you're living together x
When does your mat leave leave start? I was in a similar position in that my full pay was going to half pay after 3 months, then after another 4 months it reduced to half pay then after that it was SMP for the remaining. My payroll department was able to organise my mat pay so that I got 10 equal payments spread across the 39 weeks. It meant that I didn’t get my full pay at the start and because my earnings are high, it was a very noticeable drop but it meant I was never in a position that I was going down to a couple of hundred pounds per month when it went to SMP and we were able to just pull in the purse strings and know what we were getting each month. You could ask about this. Also, if you’ve got some things sitting on credit cards etc you could consolidate it into a low interest loan and take it out for like 6 years so it really reduces your outgoings. When you go back to work just take another one out for 1-2 years to pay it back fast. That helped me a lot xx
It doesn't matter whether you're married or not. If you live together then their income will be taken into account.
Doubt you will be entitled to much apart from child benefit, I would suggest saving between now and your mat leave beginning. Also your partner will need to help contribute.
You probably can’t claim much other than SMP, and child benefit has to be paid back in tax for those who earn over £60k too (we don’t claim it for this reason). As others have said, I just tried to save as much as possible before going off to see us through the SMP months
As a combined household we make less than £80k pa although we keep our cost relatively low but we are able to save over £1000/month. I love budgeting and I can help you manage your numbers if that will help you save more.
Our mortgage company did a 6 month interest only period for us - it’s a new thing, that isn’t a holiday, so interest rate is protected - this helped me massively when mine dropped
I’m only on smp as hadn’t been in my job a year and all I’m entitled to is child benefit at £25 a week! Your lucky to be getting as much mat pay as your getting
If you have more than I think 4750 in savings you won’t be able to claim UC X
to connect with women at a similar stage in life.
Trusted by 5M+ women
to connect with women at a similar stage in life.
Trusted by 5M+ women
We are both higher earners with a lot of outgoings and this was my concern but what I found (my LO is now 2.5) I really didn’t spend much so saved more!! I wasn’t driving as much, we were not going out to dinner as much, or on random weekends away, or commuting into central London for work or buying lunch out every day. Even though for the last few months I had nothing coming in, I actually had less going out!! We were not budgeting or not doing something because of it we just found that we did different things!!! A walk with an NCT friend and a hot chocolate is a lot less than meeting for dinner and drinks after work!! (Trust me you will do this a lot!) I didn’t even dip into savings I just used my current account and by the time I got to £0 it was time to go back to work after a year off. That included 3 long haul holidays etc. Do a spreadsheet and look at what your outgoings are that are linked to work, commuting, and socialising - you will be amazed!
Other than the child benefit thingy (old family allowance) I don't believe there's anything we can claim. Depending on when you go on mat leave, you may well have still earned over the threshold for any benefits to be paid. There's a .gov website that does benefit calculators though - so if you pop in what your annual earning will be for the tax year and it'll tell you if you're entitled to anything. So as an example, I'm going on annual leave in may, then 6 weeks full pay for me before dropping to statutory for the remaining 33 weeks of leave, then 2.5 months unpaid, then 1 months annual leave before returning to work. The total amount paid for the year will put me over any threshold for benefits. I hope that makes sense? Failing that, give citizens advice a call