Maternity leave budget guide
How to build a maternity leave budget that reflects your real life.
A maternity budget is not just a list of baby purchases. The bigger question is whether the household still works when one income changes for several months.
Start with normal take-home income
Use the amount that normally reaches the bank rather than starting with gross salary for every household calculation. Gross figures still matter for statutory-pay estimates, but take-home is easier to compare with real spending.
Separate essentials from lifestyle
Essentials usually include housing, council tax, utilities, food, transport, insurance and debt repayments. Lifestyle can include meals out, holidays, hobbies, gym memberships, subscriptions and personal spending.
Keeping those groups separate does not mean lifestyle spending is “bad”. It simply lets you model what would happen if you decided to trim it temporarily.
Add baby costs in two buckets
Upfront purchases
Think travel system, cot, car seat, nursery furniture, monitor and anything else you expect to buy before or around the birth.
Ongoing monthly costs
Nappies, wipes, feeding, clothing and other repeating costs are better treated as part of the monthly leave budget.
Plan the income drop by stage
Do not use one average maternity-pay number if your income will move from full pay to half pay, statutory pay and then unpaid leave. The timing of those stages is what creates the savings requirement.
Include a reserve you do not want to spend
If you want an emergency fund left untouched at the end of maternity leave, treat it as a floor rather than counting every pound of savings as available for normal spending.
If you keep some finances separate
You do not need to expose every personal outgoing to create a household plan. Bump & Balance can use private partner contributions so each person can account for their own side without showing the other person every salary, debt or subscription.