You have to be given 2 weeks paid at £100 per week, by law.

 

If you've been in permanent employment for 6 months, you legally HAVE to get it.

 

my daughter's mother does.

only twice a week mind, and i've told her she can only have a sticky bun every other week.

 

Christ on a bike B2Z....no-one forced you into having a child!!
You can't say you didn't know the financial situation before you had one......
You seem to want everyone but yourself to fund the child's upbringing!!

 

Yes - that's why the current situation is unfair. We give our people one week at full pay and one week at 1/2 pay - it still isn't brilliant but at least they can take one week off without having to worry about money.

 

Yes, but houses were cheaper. A nuclear family with two or three kids could be supported quite easily by a middle-earning bloke, with the wife doing childcare duties. Times change; better and more reliable contraception meant that the middle and high earners had fewer children, and tended to have them later in life.

Women got better education, and it was no longer considered strange for them to go to universities, and from then on into careers.

House prices have risen in many areas, which has meant that there's a need for more income, particularly as in many cases the sorts of reasonably well-paid manual jobs (docker/miner/steelworker) have either declined or disappeared. Hence the rise of the working working-class mum, together with the middle-class career mum.

And yes, our expectations have risen as well - it took my father until he was 60 to have enough disposable cash that he could buy his first new car ....... I managed it (and what a stupid mistake it was - never again) when I was 23. We never had a family foreign holiday .... I've had a foreign holiday (usually two) every year for the last 15. Then again, I only ever buy secondhand cars now, I won't pay for Sky, don't eat out much, don't smoke, and buy no expensive clothes (other than suits for work). And no, there's no debt other than the mortgage.

 

If I re-read your posts, you've done nothing but moan on about the cost of childcare, the goverment doing little to help, no paternity leave, etc.

Who created this child? Whose choice was it to bring it into the world?

 

I'm not sure it is, you know. We've had a system like this for many years, and if anything, things are getting better for fathers rather than worse. Most companies will give time off/pay in excess of legal minima, something which would not have happened even a decade ago.

As for women being on maternity pay for 6 months; yes, there is something payable, but no, it's not full pay for very long at all. More like £50/week after the first 6 weeks, or at least something like that.

 

I will agree with you on that one as regards the "good" people being penalised

 

Nothing to stop you using some annual leave of course.........

 

I know this won't help. but have you got any holiday left? If so, can't you use that for a week?

And as for Mum's getting paid maternity pay, it's 90% of your usual salary for 6 weeks and the rest at £102.50 per week, same as paternity pay. Women can't work when they have a baby and father's can.

What I did was work as near to my due date as possible - 2 weeks before - and then get the maximum benefit of the 90% after the baby is born. I would rather do that as money is more important after the child is born.

Lifestyle changes are needed. When I had Hollie, I was used to having my own money and doing with it what I wanted. When I had to go to her Dad for handouts, it was severely demoralising for me and a pain in the *** for him. I think a major contributory factor to us splitting up was money, (especially as when I went back to work after 6 months, I was on more money than him......)

 

Sorry, didn't see the posts about holiday.

When are they planning to increase annual leave? Can't wait for that. I think 20 days is pants, especially when you have to save 3 or 4 days for Christmas!

With stress levels at an all-time high and the burden this creates on the NHS, they should be forcing us to have more time off. Don't even get me started on pensions and having to work until we're 70! What jobs will be left then for us to do?

 

Listen, if you've got a young child at home, you will want to go into the office to work

 

always a toughy this one, and everyone has their views and opinions...
my side of it is that,
i had my son 20 months ago when mine and my partners wagers were very low, we bought our flat and moved in when my boy was a month old, and we struggled like hell, for me to go back to work in the job i was doing would of meant i was actually bringing home a minus figure after paying childcare, my family live 50mile away so that wasnt an option!
so i didnt go back to work, we got child tax credits of about £25 a week, and working tax credit of a whopping £6 for the first 12 months, and this tax year they are taking £3 back out of the working tax as they say they over paid us!!
my partner was at the time bringing home £200 a week!
it wasnt viable for me to go back to work unless i could get a job that would pay me at least £8-50p an hour, and not many do down here!!

all i can say is, no matter how bleak it looks now, you WILL fiind a way to manage and to still have a bit of a life too, we did, wasnt anything extravagant, but we had happy times and still managed to have fun and stuff, and pay all our bills!
things get easier, like i say you find a way and do what you have to do at the end of the day!
my partner chucked his job in and went self employed, back to carpentry, not so secure etc and can be stressfull when you dont know when the next job is coming in but so far so good, been busy as hell and earning fantastic money!

dont panic about it now, not if baby due in just a months time, enjoy your last month of being pregnant and look forward to being parents... you have so much joy about to bounce into your lives dont mar it by worrying too much, things always have a habit of sorting themselves out eventually!

good luck
x

 

well said, scoobyangel.

 

Agree with Scoobyangel - I've seen so many friends who have just coped.....one with 4 kids. You do what you have to do, and yes, there'll be hard times, and nice things you just can't afford, but you just get on with it and deal with it.

 

So spooky – you could have been me a year ago Bravo!!!!

Not being possessed of awesome intelligence and pecuniary foresight (I was just a happy prospective dad) I was very disappointed when the penny dropped that it was going to be financially absurd for the missus to go back to work. I earn a good wage – so why should I worry too much? Well truth is the government snooker you (ohh and themselves) which makes NO sense to me - they gain no taxes from having ‘the mother’ back at work which in turn pays for other people to look after their child who then pay taxes etc etc. This is primarily based on childcare costs down here being £1100 pcm :eek

So, my family’s reward for wanting a child and for me paying a lot of taxes is that we are financially penalised into making the missus stay at home and my child is not allowed to socialise with other kids at a nursery (its would be good for her development…). Hardly stimulating for either… Add in a second child and it becomes an absurd notion.

So, we seriously cut back and bide the time till nipper 1 and prospective nipper 2 go to school. And before any holier than thou comments, this is not a whinge, it is an explanation of the leg iron that many families find themselves in. I don’t really consider it fair on me, but find it particularly unfair on missus & child. There should be a SLIDING family tax allowance based on mothers back to work income that enables it to make sense.

 

AFAIK, not school, but nursery at 3 years old. That's when childcare becomes free if you find a nursery place that can be funded (no idea as to how difficult this is - but our local privately run nursery does it).

 

I guess it depends on where you want to prioritise. If it is good for the child to be in a nursery, and ALSO good for your wife to be in a working environment for some of the week, I guess you'd compromise and shell out....

Of course, I couldn't possibly comment on your contribution to a recent thread about an Audi S4 selling for £15k+....

I guess we all have our priorites in life.

 

This thread took off a bit. Some interesting comments and I agree with Imlach to some extent about nobody made me get pregnant etc. Circumstances have really changed though in the last 8months for me so whereas a child before was going to be financially quite tight,for me now, its just impossible

I'm getting organised though, and i've got until March to really start paniking

Thanks for replies and at some of B2Z's replies

 

Breathing space idea - can you park the scoob somewhere for six months or a year, get a SORN, and use the (smelly) Fiesta? You keep scoob and don't lose money on resale, but it might save you a grand for one year on tax and insurance (I reckon the saving on fuel would be negligible if you don't use it for commuting). I don't know if the grand is most useful in the first, second, third etc year of a child's life, but it's a thought.

 

You mean the fiesta that keeps threatening to catch fire? I'd be even more screwed for money then as he'd make me pay for all the petrol he only uses the scoob at weekends as it is and thats to go to the shops and his parents house so wouldn't say thats unnecessary usage.

I think i might have to resort to my old student tactics regards buying food for myself though, pasta, pasta and errrm more pasta (Tesco value of course )

 

It's not free everywhere, and I'm sure it's only local nurseries, not full-time 8am to 6pm day care.

Like I said before, I got vouchers when she was 3 1/2, but nothing was ever provided free

Do you have the link to where it says it is free, cos I will demand a refund!