Maternity pay
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I get 2 months full pay. I think I can just afford to do another 4 months after that. 6 months total. Could be much better but I feel okay about it ... I think.
Some of this post seems a little braggy. However I don’t believe it was intended that way. That mortgage on your money isn’t remotely big. It’s not even 15% of your combined salary. If you can’t afford the lifestyle you have then you’ll need to return to work earlier than planned. Have you considered shared parental leave? My husband got 12 weeks full pay from his Co so I took 6 months, he had the final 3.
I’m lucky in that my partner earns a good salary of 65k a year but we have no savings due to mortgage and house stuff! I’m on the lowest you can get so 6 weeks 90%pay then the lowest for SMP after that, it’s terrible but we should manage, it’s mostly debt that causes our issue, be it car payments and insurance or bills and mortgage it adds up 🫣
Mine was standard, 99% for 1st 6 weeks then SMP. However, a couple of months after I went on leave the company enhanced it to 3 months full pay, I was livid!
I think the problem here isn’t with SMP and more to do with employers not paying their employees better maternity packages. Because SMP is from the government they will never match the range of salaries and it will simply never be enough. I was in a similar position to you salary wise and got 8 weeks full pay, 16 weeks half pay, then the rest SMP up until 39 weeks. Luckily my partner earns more than me so we managed to make it work and just cut back on some things like switching from sky tv to the loaded firestick, I downgraded my car during my mat leave etc and that saved us a good few hundred each month. I was off and our mortgage was due for renewal just after liz truss’s disaster and our payments almost doubled. I was really stressed but we managed to make it work and didn’t use any savings. You will be ok. Just look at all your outgoings and see what you can cut back on. Every little helps xx
You both earn so much and should be able to save the difference.
Personally I don’t understand why pressure isn’t on the government to force employers to match or match as close to the women’s salary as reasonably possible for the 52 weeks. We shouldn’t have to rely on government/public funded support when we are employed by companies who pay us a salary. My maternity pay wasn’t the best but it’s a better benefit than most private sector employers offer (I’m employed by the public sector) and it’s one of the reasons I wouldn’t change employer. No maternity package or a poor one would shape my decision on whether or not I wanted to work for a company x
At my company it's loyalty based so with my first I'd been there 3 years and qualified for 100% for 6 weeks then 60% for 33 weeks. With my youngest I had been there over 5 years and got 39 weeks full pay plus an extra two weeks of annual leave added to my allowance to use within 3 months of my return. With both kids I added annual leave and returned when they were about 14 months old I work 4 days and my salary is about £87k a year. I'm the lower earner so we were fine and could save in advance. We've worked hard but are lucky to have had certain opportunities and are very grateful.
@Chelsea I think the problem with that is the huge financial impact on the employer - so they’d simply just not hire any women aged 20-50 in case they had to pay it!
@Elizabeth I understand that and definitely see that as a risk but that’s not an excuse to let them get away with it. That would be breaking all equality legislation. I know in reality it doesn’t work like that though but I think it’s shocking that in this day and age it’s allowed to happen x
@Caroline that’s a great pay, what do you do for work?
@Ema UX research for a tech company.
I only get SMP, and my mortgage is about the same. When I had our first I was made redundant so didn’t get any maternity pay and my husband was fully supporting us on his £50k salary plus overtime, and we survived.
I only receive SMP but my partner pays for everything so the money doesn’t make any difference to me. I think we are lucky to be able to take a whole year off with our babies. IMO if you get more than smp you’re lucky, but if you force employers to do more than women will become less desirable to employ.
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SMP is so low it’s rubbish 😫 I’m lucky as the company I work for does 6 months full pay. I’m planning to take a year off so after the 6 months it’ll be SMP and then nothing after that stops. I think you can do up to 10 KIT days so I will probably use some of those nearer the end as you get full pay for each of those days. I’m planning to save as much of my salary as I can for the first 6 months so that I can then use those savings for the next 6 months.
@Cal it wasn’t intended in such a way.. I am hammered on tax and student loan every month, so yes seems a high figure but after deductions you’d be suprised. I have 5 cats a 2 dogs too ( yes my choices over the years, but insurances go up) and it does eat into your disposable income. My post wasn’t intended to be braggy at all and I’m sorry if you feel it’s come across in such a way
My maternity pay got messed up so my pay packaged has worked in my favour a bit but I owe work money due to it. I should have got 8 weeks full pay and 18 weeks half pay then SMP. What I got was 4 months full pay, 4 months half pay and then I'm not really sure what as I only got £239 this month, my daughters now 10 months so I wasn't really expecting anything. I had savings thanks to lockdown I was saving a good amount each month as i was self isolating on full pay. A lot of that's gone now, I spent maybe 85% of my savings because half pay didn't cover every bill
I only get SMP and knew this before we started trying (thanks to a pregnant colleague telling me) so we knew we'd have to save whilst pregnant to top up my SMP to cover my half of bills and rent. Even then we can only afford for me to take 6 months (went off at 38 weeks and LG arrived at 42wks) so I'll be going back when she's 5 months. My husband earns way more than me anyway so he's tried to top up my half out of his money when he can rather than touching savings as we also want to buy a house ASAP. Its tight and I can't just buy things without checking how much we have but I know it could be worse and I could have had to go back sooner
Savings, and since my mat leave started we’ve been treating our income as joint. I’m on SMP and we manage fine on a much lower household income. You’re right, SMP is terrible, but even with all the pets, with a household income of £130-£150k, no credit and only £1500 mortgage I imagine you’ll be fine. You might have to adjust your lifestyle a bit (ie if you’re going out for dinner weekly, buying expensive clothing etc) or take less than 12 months may leave
My company pays me 90% for 9 months, I’ve honestly not seen a better package & couldn’t believe it when I read my contract
@Caroline that’s amazing
@Eve wowsers! What company do you work for?
@Rachel Sytner BMW x
@Eve that's great! Is it from day one of employment? My company also do great packages but it's a sliding scale depending on how long you've been there. I got 100% for 9 months but only because I'd been there 5+ years.
Yeah it’s similar but I think you only have to have been there year at my place! X
Taking 4 months on SMP. Pretty shit but we don’t really have another option 🤷🏻♀️
I had six months full pay (which is amazing, I know). I then did three months on SMP. For final three months I didn’t get any maternity pay but I’ve been doing KIT days which really help. Saving before baby helps too - especially as I put it in a high interest account so was able to use some interest from that to help a bit too. My partner has had to pay more into our joint account to cover bills when my salary dropped. It’s not ideal, but you could also just go back to work earlier than 12 months if you’re very worried / struggling.