Planning for maternity leave and how I saved money! This is a bit of a daughting subject isn’t it, money! And an important one at the same time. Firstly, I just want to say Congratulations! You are having a baby and preparing for maternity leave. It is really a gift and such wonderful news! There is alot to get your head around tho and I can’t helped but feel a little bit stressed about surviving whilst on maternity leave. So I’m going to share with you some of the things I’ve done to save money and to get ready to be in the best financial position as possible.

Firstly find out what your maternity leave entitlements are, from your work. For me because I work full time as a nurse, have been in this current job longer than 3 years, I am entitled to 10 weeks maternity leave at full pay, after that time the australian government currently supports us for a further 18 weeks at the weekly national minimum wage. Click the link for current information about how to get the australian parental leave pay. You will need to do some reading and attend a local centre link to get access to fill out the my gov forms online, once you have access there is a fair bit of information required to get the ball rolling, so I recommend you do it on a day when you have 2-3 hours to spare and complete the questions in the centre so if anything pops up you can get the help you need straight away. You can start the application 3 months before your due date.

The second thing I did was complete and submit my tax. Any money returned here can be used to pay off debts and or be put into savings. Thats right yep it’s that time of year again and we all know we need to do this every year. It’s funny how each year it comes around like a dreaded surprise. Start the new financial year off with better accounting keeping to decrease stress for the following year, if you have a business try xero, a great way to keep track of your transations and receipts. Otherwise if you have an excel spread sheet you could use or a log book or a system that already works, then use that. The most important thing here is to keep track.

Next review your bank accounts- look at all the transations that are coming out, magazine subscriptions, union memberships, put them on hold for the duration of your leave, look at other accounts like netflix, stan, amazon. Call and cancel any uneccessary subscriptions immediately. I was paying amazon $14 a month for a service I wasn’t using. Its amazing what you will find. SAVINGS!!

Consolidate your loans, this may take a while to organise, but you can save $1000 of dollars by consolidating your loans with lower interest rates and decreasing your repayments. Plus if you do it before the time the next repayment is due to come out. Often when a new loan is set up, the first repayment doesn’t come out for a month. So you can use this extra money to pay off any debt you have or to SAVE!!!

Cut up your credit card!! Cancel any direct debts you have set up on it and pay it off. The interest you are paying here will more than likely be the highest out of all of your loans. See if you can do a balance transfer onto a new credit card or personal loan with atleast a 12 month interest free period. Otherwise just make it a priority to pay it off as fast as you can.

Draw up a monthly budget. Know what your income will be. Work out what your out goings will be, how much you will need to live on, including bills. Allow for spending money, nobody likes to not have spending money, especially with a new growing baby. Work out how much you can save and finally how much debt you can pay each month. Remember the faster you pay off your debt the less interest you will pay and the more money you will save in the long run. I highly recommend listening to The Barefoot Investor for detailed and sound advise on setting this all up. If you can’t last for three to six months without a job you definately need to prioritise this area of your life.

Finally as exciting as it is to bring a new life into the world. Try to avoid temptation spending. You will be amazed at how tempting it is the buy the lastest and greatest for your new little bub, ofcourse I know the feeling, I want the best for my baby too. However you will be amazed at how little they need and how much you can save by borrowing or hiring items that the baby will only use for a short period of time. Already I have borrowed a basinet and a cot and hired a baby car seat for the first 6 months. Keep things simple and buy only as you need.

Much love always

Sheridan x

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