1. As soon as you see those two pink lines, start creating a maternity leave fund for yourself. This can be as big or as little as you need, but the key here is to work out how much money you will need for the amount of time you are planning on taking off of work. Which leads on nicely to my second top tip.
2. Request a maternity pay schedule from your employer, if available. This is where you are given a week by week break down of your expected maternity pay, including statutory pay if you are eligible. I used my schedule to calculate how much I should expect to be paid each month- It also helped me to work out how much time I could afford to take off! For someone who likes to plan ahead, this was particularly valuable.
3. Create a month by month budget plan. Each payday I simply jotted down my income, along with a list of all my outgoings. From that, I was able to work out how much disposable income I had remaining. As a visual person, having it written down was really important for me.
4. Withdraw cash for spending money. Trust me, contact-less payments really are not the best option if you are budgeting. As mentioned above, I am a visual person, so using physical money really helped to spend more consciously.
5. If you’re meeting a friend for coffee, why not bring your own and suggest a walk around a park instead of the local coffee shop? Invest in a funky new travel mug and some decent coffee and you’re sorted! If you’ve planned to meet for lunch, why not arrange a picnic instead, or a bring and share lunch at your home? Trust me, you’ll save so much money. I know I did.
Half way into my maternity leave, the UK was placed on lockdown for four months. You can read about this experience and what lockdown taught me about money, here.
I hope you find this list useful. All feedback is welcome, so please share any comments and top tips of your own below- we can all learn from each other 🙂
DISCLAIMER: I am not a financial adviser and have purely written from my own experience. Always carry out your own research and seek professional advice if you so require.
