I have actually started to really panic about the fact my outgoings for my personal stuff like my car, phone, loan, CC etc equate to about my SMP (£123 a week), i have then thought about the fact this does not cover my half of the mortgage and food and bills!?

So this is partly a panic and moan thread so I apologise. The thought of not having my own money and a proper wage that I have worked so hard to gain is making me feel sick!

What dont the government get? I have been working and paying my taxes for over 10 years, my OH and I get a mortgage based on combined salaries and outgoings. So when you do decide to procreate and your salary is deducted by over 75%, so the mortgage company allow you to reduce your payments by 75% to allow for this - NOPE!!!! How the bl**dy hell do they expect you to cope on £123 a week along with an extra mouth to feed?

I was watching the 7 days on the breadline programme and a lady there with her state pension gets more than we do on maternity and its just her alone, without the added cost of a baby. This I can promise you is nothing against this lady PERSONALLY just another b *llshit rule our government has plucked out of their little pea heads that DOES NOT MAKE sense!

To add insult to injury you are at home dealing with a new baby, your tired and stressed and then they add the stress of having no money to this!

Its really starting to stress me majorly. I have worked hard to get the salary I do, but also I chose a company that has just the basic, minimal maternity package. I have saved SUPER since I have been pregnant to have some extra money each month so I can at least have the occasional coffee, or buy baby or me a treat every so often, but as law of s*d has it, my car is up for major service and our service charge was due on our flat last month so its slowly strinking before I have even started maternity leave! OH earns well but has HUGE debts from his previous marriage and also (rightly so) pays maintenance for his son, which equates to over a third of his take home, so he is also stressing as to where its all going to come from!

I am due to leave next week at 36 weeks, original plan was to stay until 38 week purely as I was thinking of the extra £££, but as my weeks ticked by 12 hours days in central London were beginning to take their toll and for my health I need to start relaxing and sleeping!

Is anyone else worrying about money and how are you getting around the dramatic cut in take home funds?

Very stressed - Curly! :cry:
34+5
x

i've been worrying about money since hubby and i started talking about having kids and i found out what the maternity pay was...
basically since our wedding i've been saving every last penny from my wages to try and cover the difference between what i get from maternity and what i need just to be able to pay the bills.
like you we took on a mortgage that needed us both to be able to contribute.. would have loved to have been able to buy a house on only one of our wages but it just wasn't possible! so i still need to be able to contribute to the mortgage and household bills every month. on top of that there is my car loan, insurance, phone, and i would like to be able to afford petrol so that i'm not permanently stuck in the house...
i had to work out what was the bare miniumum i would need a month to be able to cover my expenses and try and save that.

it's so depressing how little we have to survive on. there is just no way that i can afford to have a years leave, it would be a stretch for 9 months, mainly due to hubby working in construction and that industry still hasn't recovered from the recession and there is always talk of redundancy's.

every time i think of how we are going to manage i want to cry but i know that we'll make it thru somehow and our little baby will make all the struggling and saving and cut backs worthwhile!

sorry i can't be of any help, but your not on your own with the money worry!

I am another stress pot over money so I can honestly say I feel your pain especially as I am the bread winner of the household. We are also mortgaged (buying at the peak in the market possibly wasnt the best choice either)

We have worked out our bills etc and if we save an extra £300 a month then we will ONLY just get by and that is with £50 a week for food bills which is to include nappies and any other baby stuff. Its going to be sooooooo tight and stressful but at least we are expecting it and havnt stuck our head in the sand hoping it would go away.

All I can say hun is you are not alone - I think many many of us are in the same position. Perhaps we should pertition to raise the SMP and SPP to a higher level it may not benifit us at the moment but it could in the future. x

Thanks Mrs Giddy! I know my car takes £60 to fill her up and I dont live walking distance to any friends or shops!

Do you think that the people who working Health etc realise how much stress this puts on pregnant women?

x

Thanks Purple Sox.

I did wonder if calculating SMP based on a percentage of your current salary would work?! Seeing as though people that work get the same as people who dont?

x

Curly

I fretted about this around 25-26 weeks when I was putting in my MAT B1 form. I look after our finances doesnt matter hubby used to work in a bank he cant work our internet banking out for toffee lol! So what we did was get all the bank statements out and write down all our outgoings,hubbys incomings and my incomings on maternity pay we then also used the online calculators to calculate things like tax credits. (not a lot as like you we have both worked really really hard to earn good wages and with overtime this year (as were having a baby) it means we dont get much help as its based on the previous years earnings.

We then worked out what we would have and what we wouldnt. The problem didnt go away it will be tight but it will be tighter for other people more and we will manage its just hubby will take more of the financial burden for a while. It just stopped me stressing so much to have the facts and figures and not the stress and anxiety of the unknown that I had built in my head!

I have also had to sacrafice some mat leave and will go back after 6 not 9 months although if things are really tight as I am changing my hours after he is born to enable me to be a sahm during the week I will have to go back earlier which upsets me, but if we need money for food these things have to be done.

I dont agree with the benefits system in this country there are some people who really really need help and cant get anything and my friend who came round yesterday is so mad at her partners brother who feels that at 21 he has worked hard enough and now deserves to stay at home and live off the state. She was ranting as she hates the fact she is paying for him to do this and said she would rather money went to people who deserve it!

Write down all incomings and outgoings and try and treat it as one big pot of money rather than yours and then your partners if you can and then split it so if possible you each have money left over that is equal even if he does pay more its only temporary and will relieve some stress!

Em 38 + 2 x x

It infuriates me that tax credits are calculated on the pervious years earnings!!! What differance does that make, I wont be getting any where near that with smp, they should work it out on current earnings. Grrrr flippen heck it hacks me right off

But positive being you go back to work are no longer struggling financially but you will get loads of tax credits based on your maternity earnings!

My hubby went what use is that we wont need it then!

I worried immensly about money before the boys were born, and we were expecting twins! lol!

I am the main wage earner and earn a good 6000 more than hubby. We also have a fairly high mortgage (although it is varaible so the recession has helped), a loan and 2 cars on finance, as well as bills etc!

However, I have been on maternity since the beginning of Sept and the boys were born a month ago and, while it is hard, it really isnt that bad. We did have to do a few things to help though. Hubby stopped his pension for 6 months, we both changed mobile contracts, I went through direct debits with a fine toothed comb and, the main thing, I got rid of my car. It is a bit limiting but I can use hubby's car if needs be and it removed tax, insurance, fuel and hp payment for the time im on maternity. I will be then replacing it when I go back to work. It was a major sacrifice for me as I have never been without a car, but I havent really noticed it too much. I love walking (I walked a good 5 miles yesterday to go to town/friends/hospital/my dads and it made me feel better - and I only had a section 4 weeks ago!) and the boys love their buggy much more than the horrid car seats.

By keeping a very close eye on things and cutting back on unnecessaries we are actually much better off than we thought we would be. Nappies arent that expensive (Tesco own brand really are the best I have found) and I have to buy for 2 (very pooey babies I might add!) I also breastfeed exclusively which saves a lot of money.

I know everyone says it but you really do learn to live by your means. Try not to stress. I have ruined many a moment stressing about things I cant do much about and it really isnt worth it.

Oh, and I have had to go back to work earlier than I wouldve wanted (6 months) which im gutted about.

Good Luck and please try not to worry too much as life really is too short.

Oh, and with regards to benefits - yes, I dispise the fact that the system in this country allows lazy people to live well. However, I have to remind myself that I dont want to be one of those people and im proud that ive worked hard for what I have. Little consolation but stops me being to bitter! lol!

Gemma, Ryan and Alfie (4 weeks 1 day)

Sorry to G/C Curly, but can i ask is OH's maintenance paid through the CSA or is it a private arrangement?? I don't know all the ins and outs but might be worth looking into if with CSA can the repayments be reassessed to take into account change in income for the household?

Lara xx

its ok - its a private agreement done 8 years ago - its about the same as what the CSA would be. Thing is the debt he is paying off was from him and his Ex's extravagent lifestyle - his fault for some reason and I dont ask, he took it on from both of them - makes me so angry!

x

Also the CSA dont take into account outgoings, just 15% of the fathers incoming take home! Regardless of how much comes out of it!

x

Curlygal, if the debt was his and his ex's jointly, the CSA will take that into account. Unfortunately my hubbie's debt's with his ex were all in his name so we get no help there.
What really annoys me with the CSA is they allow my hubbie 20% for my children, but only a futher 5% when our baby arrives!! How can a new baby count for so little when they cost so much the first year?? xx

I am lucky in the sense that my oh earns good wages and i do not have to work, but this wasn't the case when we had our first two children and i had a total of 2 months off after each child, just so we could afford our mortgage ect....
Tax credit are totally stupid, when i had our ds we wasn't entitled to anything because our joint earning were over the standard amount, then not long after i found out i was expecting our dd, my oh was made redundant and as they still calculated it from our previous years earnings they still said we couldnt get anything, so all he got was contributions based job seekers (around£60 pw) that for two children and a mortgage ect. The year after he got a very well paid job and they had to pay us the money from the previous year, so we got money when we didnt actually need it! How stupid is that!!!!!
I know how everyone feels though, i have friends who are expecting their second child and neither of them has worked in years and they get everything paid for them, we get absolutely nothing! Its a joke!
I understand that some people find them selves in hard situations, like i did and need the help, but some people just choose to live of everyone else and its disgusting! x

Mrs Loz - same situation, she was clever or OH was stupid and it was all in his name!

Makes me so angry! That we have to struggle!

x

Haven't really got anything useful to add but did just want to chip in and say that you're definitely not alone.

We have two decent wages coming in (although I earn about £20k more than hubby) but are comitted to the mortgage, two cars and a loan we used to do the house up when we bought it.

By sheer luck I seem to have chosen a company with a half decent maternity package where luckily they'll pay 100% of my salary for the first 3 months and 50% for the next 3 months. We are therefore having to save like buggery to try and make sure we have enough of a pot to top my wages back up ro 100% while I'm off. If I'd honest I'd love to have 9 months off with bubs when she arrives but we genuinely can't afford to survive on SMP.

What really really stings is that we pay a frigging fortune in tax and national insurance and I really feel like I don't get anything back for it. This is the one time in my life when I could do with some help from the government and they're not going to help one bloody bit. To add insult to injury we won't get any tax credits when I go back to work.

Where the hell is the incentive in all of that for me to work hard and have a good job???? Feel like I might as well be living in a council house with 6 kids on benefits...

sorry for the rant, I hadn't meant for that to go on for so long!!

MN
26+2
xxx

Here here Monkey Nuts! You rant away!

The govenment sucks for middle class, tax payers!

x

I am another worrier worrying about the same thing as all you lot!!

We didn't plan our pregnancy as my o/h was told about 3/4 years ago with his ex that there was no chance of him ever having kids! So it was a huge surprise! Although we both earn about the same and I work for a bloody big company, they don't make up any maternity pay so SMP it is for me.

We have tried to save and luckily have big families so have had lots of stuff bought for us, but the worry of o/h basically having to keep me for the next 6 months is a big worry. I am the same as you with the fact my family/friends don't live near me (his do but that's not the same), so I will be needing lots of petrol in my car when baby comes!!

But I just keep thinking that there are lots of people in a hell of a worse state than us so it is just something I'm gonna have to put up with and see how it goes.

Good luck when your baby arrives anyway!

Nici
39+1 xxx

Tell me about it. Hubby has no work, its nearly xmas. Baby due in the next week or two. I wasnt working so no maternity pay for me, My scumbag ex doesn't have to pay anything through CSA as he's been lying about not working when my son tells me that he has. but CSA dont give a crap. He's just moved (which I knew about) but he wouldn't tell me the address as he's outrunning debts and me I think!

My son comes back telling me the address and that he is working. Okay so he has my son 3 nights a week - and doesnt think he should pay or help any. BUT when my new hubby had HIS son 3 nights a week HE still had to give his bitch of an ex £180 amonth! she now wants £220 and has reported him to CSA because my hubby wouldn't allow her to change his sons surname to her new boyfriends - honestly I could just scream at the moment.

I feel like everyone wants to kick you when your down. I was going to ring the tax credits people tomorrow and say hubby isnt working but judgeing by what you've all said its a waste of time!

Makes me wonder why they are so HOT on you informing them of any change if it takes a bloody year to do anything about it??!!
I hate this country and it makes me regret having another baby.
My hubby was in full time employment and we were doing okay when I fell pregnant, okay so his ex was robbing him and he had debts but we at least HAD the money to pay everything. Its been getting gradually worse as the weeks go by. Now he's earning NOTHING. No promises of work, came up against a brick wall at the jobcentre about claiming anything - it STINKS.

He used to pay £660-700 a month in bloody TAX SO WHERES OUR HELP NOW?

What a waste of time this country is.

Hello, hope you don't mind, I'm g/c from ttc.

I have looked into maternity etc for when it's out turn and one thing I noted from the business link website is that you can challenge your employer's maternity package - an enhanced package can be contractual, at discretion or on a case-by-case basis. See http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/bdotg/action/detail?r.s=sc&r.l1=1073858787&r.lc=en&r.l3=1080898273&r.l2=1080898061&type=RESOURCES&itemId=1080903421 under 'enhanced pay".

If you have a good relationship with your boss, this may be a possibility. Sorry if this isn't much help, but I work on "if you don't ask, you don't get" !

I mentioned this to my HR Manager (I dabble in HR a bit for our remote site) and she said this was def a possibility for me to take up with my boss. We had worked together a long time and I think we'd have come to an arrangement. Unfortunately, he left recently and now I need to work on the new boss!!

Good luck ladies. I agree with everything you've said on this topic - it's the middle class taxpayers who are stumped yet again. Seems you need to be on benefits or ultra rich to get by these days!

Would a mortgage holiday be a possibility for any of you - it was a total life saver for us when I was on maternity!!!