Non paid Leave

Myzticsunshine

So do any of you other lovely ladies find yourself without any real benefits, including maternal leave?

my boss is entirely ok with me taking two months off, but I will only be making the 200 every two weeks for the side work I can do on my computer at home. Oh and DH is a SAH dad, which is great until this happens 

Oh well, what can be done? 

TheThornBird

Yup, I'm self employed and also have a part time job that I'm leaving after the baby is born. So whatever time I take off from my business, I don't get paid. We've just been saving as much as we can and should be okay (although DH freaks out over money all the time!). 

sarawifenow

Because I went PT to go back to school before we got PG, I do not have any benefits through work. I will be taking approximately 3 months off of school/work unpaid. Luckily H has a very good job and will be able to cover the essentials until I am back working.

I am glad that H and my schedules are opposite so we won't have to worry about day care. Sounds like that is also a worry you won't have which is great because that is a huge money suck!

JoMunson

I'm not eligible for FMLA because I've worked at my school for just under a year. I'm eligible for Oregons MLA which allows 60 days unpaid. Since my teacher contract is 360 days I'm being cashed out in April, which will give us about $5,000 of living expenses to make it through April to September. In addition we've chosen to save our tax return this year and buy most of baby's items used. We'll be tight but we'll make it!

onislandtime

I have to use all of my PTO first, which sucks because I've worked for the city for 10 years and we recently merged our center with the county and I lost ALL of my sick leave that I had been hoarding, forcing myself to come to work thru morning sickness and weekly migraines to save for my PTO. I lost almost 200 hours of leave. I was livid. We used to be able to earn comp time (time off) instead of overtime for $. We lost that too and I wasn't able to carry over all of my PTO balances. So now I have to take 4-5 weeks unpaid. And when I come back to work I will earn no more sick leave for the rest of the year. I'm super bummed. So now I am hoarding $ to be able to stretch out my leave because I was planning on taking more time off. They won't even let me stretch it out and use like 30 hours per week, I have to use it all up. 

ETA I am also hoping like hell the county won't make me pay for COBRA for health insurance and just let me pay my monthly premium because COBRA is insanely expensive. The county's HR person said they "don't normally" make employees pay for COBRA." So here's hoping....

Myzticsunshine

Man it can be such a sticky situation. 

kbrands7

I'll have mostly unpaid time off too. I can use my accumulated sickdays (I have 12) to get paid for 2.5 weeks, then I'll have no paycheck until Sept. 1 after going back to work Aug. 15th. I'll have to pay out of pocket for my benefits until the end of the school year (which will be about a month after my sick days run out) but thankfully have pre-paid my benefits for the summer out of my paycheck already. We'll be living off of a portion of our savings and DH's salary which will be tight, but doable for the short term. I generally try to buy and stock up during sales as much as possible, and we'll do freezer meals and a garden for the summer so that our grocery bill mostly comes down to dairy and some veggies that we don't grow (we did this when DS was born too).

kp90

I have 12 weeks with FMLA but have to use all saved annual leave and sick leave then the rest is all unpaid which will be a large chunk. I've been trying to save and SO will be helping with more bills, etc. So lets hope it works and I'm not dead broke after maternity leave.

MsIan

My boss just gave me the okay to take 6 months off. I have to use my sick and annual leave first which will be about 6 weeks and then the rest is unpaid. We'll be living off of savings and my fiance's salary. 

arj14

I work  2 twenty hour positions. With one, I'm eligible for six weeks WI FMLA, and can get paid 50% of my wages through  short term disability, which should be just enough to pay for my insurance with maybe  $30 extra.

  In my job with a local school district, I only work 9 months out of the year which isn't enough overall hours to qualify for FMLA.  Unfortunately, I also used up all my sick leave for the year with morning sickness, so whenever I end up giving birth, I won't be paid for any days missed from there until the end of the year. 

On top of this, DH works for a different school district that requires employees to take 9 month pay, so we'll stop getting any income from him mid-June.

folamij

I have my entire maternity leave unpaid. I am privately employed, and only work part time so I don't qualify for FMLA. Plus, I've been at my current job for less than a year because I also decided to return to school before becoming pg. It sucks because I originally wanted to take off more than 8 weeks but since I haven't been there long I can't afford to be gone a larger amount of time. Thankfully, MH's income will float us through the time but we definitely have to stick to budget.
Edited because my brain temporarily stopped working...

amovin21

My company doesn't offer any short term disability so my maternity leave will be unpaid with FMLA up to 12 weeks with job security. My boss and I are suppose to chat sometime next week about the plan of my return. Daycare+ would eat up my entire salary for the month so it's not worth it for me to go back to work, but in reality we can't survive on just DH's salary so we're in a catch 22. Sadly, my job doesn't allow for any type of remote work and so far I haven't had any luck finding a job that'll let me work remotely from home to avoid those daycare cost and still bring in some type of income even if just PT.

proudparent2b

amovin21 said:

My company doesn't offer any short term disability so my maternity leave will be unpaid with FMLA up to 12 weeks with job security. My boss and I are suppose to chat sometime next week about the plan of my return. Daycare+ would eat up my entire salary for the month so it's not worth it for me to go back to work, but in reality we can't survive on just DH's salary so we're in a catch 22. Sadly, my job doesn't allow for any type of remote work and so far I haven't had any luck finding a job that'll let me work remotely from home to avoid those daycare cost and still bring in some type of income even if just PT.

Good remote jobs won't let you be your child's primary caretaker while working. Another alternative would be finding a job that is a different shift from your husband so that you can always have someone home with the child.

kristaanddane

I work for a non-profit and have no paid maternity leave. I will have saved a months worth of vacation that I can use and get paid that, but then we are saving to cover the other 6 weeks I plan on taking. It sucks and I have contemplated moving to Sweden lol!

osmama456

I don't have paid leave either, I have to use my vacation time for the first week off, then I can get STD which is at least 60% of my pay for just 6 wks, then I can tack on any additional vacation/sick time I have accrued.

Nicbert1214

kp90 said:

I have 12 weeks with FMLA but have to use all saved annual leave and sick leave then the rest is all unpaid which will be a large chunk. I've been trying to save and SO will be helping with more bills, etc. So lets hope it works and I'm not dead broke after maternity leave.

Same here- I work for the city, so I too get 12 weeks FMLA which is unpaid, we only get to keep our health benefits. I on the other hand cannot even use my sick leave while out on FMLA, I can only use my saved annual leave, which is only about 2 weeks- yuck. After the 12 weeks I will go out on an unpaid leave of absence for about 3 months. I will also lose my health benefits during that time. Luckily my bf has coverage- so we are going to probably run to city hall and get married before I give birth lol

MrsKubley

I do in home daycare, self employed so no benefits for me. Luckily one of the moms is a teacher and the other kid has a grandmother who's a teacher so I can take the summer off without them finding alternate care. But to further complicate things I'm having twins so I'm not sure I can pick up in the fall with (what will be at the time) 2 3month olds, a one year old, and 2 2year olds. Holy crap.