Money

Going on maternity soon and for the first 3 months I will get full pay (which isn’t that much anyway 1,200)then for the last 6 months of maternity I get half of my wage. (with help from partner) for anyone struggle on maternity pay?
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Don’t you also get a statutory maternity pay on top of your wage when it’s not 100% pay?

@Lyna unfortunately not. What happens is your work top up your pay. So for example in Lianne’s case if she is entitled to £1000 then SMP would pay the £172 a week and then the company would top up the rest to make it to the £1000. X

You know what Since I started my maternity, my employer always paid me half of the half, never fully 🤔

@claire Oh, I didn’t realise! I need to look into it more. I’m on maternity leave now and just can’t get my head around my payslip! Thanks for the insight!

@Roberta it depends on your company if they offer enhanced maternity leave - some don’t offer full pay x

Do you not qualify for child benefit or any of the other government schemes?

@Lucy May I ask how you get 9 months stat on top of the 3 months full pay as my understanding is that it’s 39 weeks SMP which is only approx 9 months total? 6 weeks will be 90% topped up by your employer to full pay then 33 weeks SMP? x

I get less than half pay. Only smp. We literally just scrape by with mine and my husbands wages combined. His wages somehow cancel out any universal credit entitlement

I am only 7 weeks an have been worrying how I am going to cope. I know my employer will pay me the bare minimum he has to. I don’t know how I am going to manage on £172 a week considering my household bills come to £900 that’s no including the Mortage that my fiancé pays. Any advice of how to cope on maternity pay or any extra help you can get would very much be appreciated x

@Sophie I cannot comment on extra help in terms of benefits as I’m not entitled to any but my best advice is to save as much as you can ahead of time. Oh also if you have any private schemes such as vitality then check them out as I get £200 when I have a child. X

@claire thank you, I don’t think we will be entitled to anything due to our joint income. That’s brilliant thank you for your help x

@Lucy stat only goes up to 9 months - it’s not 3 months plus 9 months, so you will have 3 months full then 6 stat. The last 3 months will be nothing https://www.gov.uk/maternity-pay-leave/pay This is the reason I’m only taking 6 months 😒

https://benefits-calculator.turn2us.org.uk/ This website has a benefit calculator to see if u may be entitled to any benefit. Put the baby's birth date so baby is already born.

Ask if you can spread your maternity, my work place has sent me a schedule which is looking so much better than the original payments I was due to get

I’ll only be getting statutory from day 1 🙈 This country is ridiculous. In places like Finland, you get 2 years fully paid by the government. It really does make you wonder where your taxes go! The only thing I can do is try to save what little I can over the next 6 months to try and bump up SMP! We won’t be entitled to any further help! We’re the typical JAM FAM!

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@Cassie Finland also has higher income tax rates and VAT…. The perks are nice but u get stung somewhere else

@claire is that vitality life insurance you’re talking about? If so, how do you go about getting the £200? x

@Kysha so my partner has Vitality health insurance and he found it in his policy details on the app, it’s actually £100 with his. I have Simply Health medical and they pay out £200, again it was on the app under my policy details. x

I wouldn't complain. Some people out here gonna get only about 680£ a month and that's not much at all, and some have to have short maternity leave and return to work etc . I wouldn't worry you got your maternity covered and money isn't bad and ur partner is there to help not much you can do. You gonna get extra money from child benefit and you can also work 10 days in a month without affecting your maternity pay if you would want to xx

@claire that’s really helpful, thank you!

@Lucy I would definitely double check that. As others have said, SMP only goes to 39 weeks. So it’s much more likely you’ll be getting 3 months full pay (SMP + your employer topping up to full pay) then 6 months SMP. So you’re still getting SMP for 9 months. The last three months of the year is unpaid.

@Carly yes you do slightly but you get a lot more out the system. My brother and sister in law live there and get no end of benefits, even though they both earn in the 40k’s. It is certainly swings and roundabouts but this country definitely doesn’t look after women in maternity as much as it should. That was the comparison.

@Cassie do they not get it based on their salary as well so they more tax they have contributed the more maternity pay they get? Not like our silly capped £172 😫

@claire what do you mean private schemes like vitality give £200? Interested in more info!

@Katie my partner and I have health insurance as a benefit at work (Vitality & Simply Health) and you can get a payment for having a child. The payment is a one off but seeing as we don’t get the sure start grant it’s nice that we get something elsewhere. So he gets £100 with Vitality and I get £200 with Simply Health x

@claire might depend where she works I got three months full pay and then I got smp that was topped up by my work to make my pay half of my wages then three months of just smp and my last three months will be no pay

@Laura yes that’s what threw me, as you have said above it’s 9 months total not 3 months plus 9 months. Regardless of the works policy with enhanced the same structure is applied underneath that so to speak. Even in your case SMP was still being paid from day 1 the company then just tops it up to full pay for a period and so on. X

Yeahhh you are all right 😂😂 oops yeah no definately 3 months full then 6 months statuatory guess I’m either gonna have to quit or come back part time for a while I really didn’t expect it to be this stressful damn. Sorry for misleading you gals I’m blaming the baby brain 😂

@Lucy it gets us all!!! Watch out, your 3 months full pay may have a clause that u have to come back for x amount of time or pay it back as it’s ‘enhanced’ - don’t accidentally get stung with that too!

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