Unpaid leave?

rebeccaanne7 · October 2013

Anyone else having to take unpaid maternity leave? My job has never offered Short Term Disability, and I only have 2 weeks vacation and 4 sick days/year (which is use it or lose it so I can't carry over). We've saved and are obviously going to be tight on money for 3 months, but any tips from Mommies who have had this experience?

rebeccaanne7 · October 2013

I'm actually thinking of not using any of my paid time, since I'm due in February, I don't want to come back and not have any days left in the year to take. Especially around holidays and possible sick days with a new baby.

jlaOK · October 2013

I had 4 weeks paid (using my 2 weeks of vacation) and 4 weeks unpaid. We had to use savings for the time without pay which is a lot of the reason I only took 8 weeks total off. We were fortunate to have savings. Yes, it took a small hit but I would much rather do that than go back to work at 4 weeks.

financialdiva · October 2013

I took 12 weeks with both my boys, 8 of which were unpaid, 4 were @60% from STD.

Like you, I didn't use my PTO either bc I wanted them available after baby.

We had money in savings to cover the bills. Also, we didn't spend as much since I wasn't driving as much, or eating out. But we didn't change our spending habits. If you are worried, make a budget and stick to it.

At the end of the day, we planned for me to be out of work for a length of time. If we couldn't afford for me to take off work, we would have waited longer to have children. If you find yourself out of money, you may have to go back early.

jf198400 · October 2013

I had partially paid maternity with my first 2. We have been thinking about TTC our 3rd but I am at a job with NO ML or STD now. I am lookig for a new job (for other reasons) and am planning to wait to get pregnant so I qualify for Fmla. A cousin of mine purchased her own private STD plan b/c she had no paid leave, but you need to do that before you get pregnant.

SunAndRain · October 2013

My company offers 12 weeks unpaid leave. I was very fortunate to be able to take this in addition to their 6-8 weeks paid maternity leave.

It did mess up my retirement savings because I returned to work too late to make up my missed contributions. Had I realized this impact early enough in the year I would have upped my contributions to equal out the total payments for that year.

rebeccaanne7 · October 2013

We knew going into getting pregnant my leave would be unpaid, hence, as I said before, we saved. We looked at getting private STD, but instead of making the monthly payments, we put that money in savings because they payouts didn't come out to much difference. Just looking for tips or ideas from others that have taken a full leave unpaid.

ccam · October 2013

We did the same as you after looking into STD. I was on leave for 6 months, 4 of those ended up being paid because of all my banked sick, personal and vacation leave. So I ended up having 2 months unpaid. All you can really do is save. And remember that when you're on leave, well at least for me, I wasn't spending the money on gas to/from work and DH and I weren't going out to eat, etc. nearly as much as we did before DS, so there was extra money there. You just learn to live on a tight budget knowing that you'll go back to work eventually.

iverske9 · October 2013

Last time I had paid maternity leave but this time I got a dream job offer when I was 11 weeks pregnant. So I do not offer any paid maternity leave. We figured out how much we need to save to cover expenses. I am only going to take 8 weeks this time as opposed to the 11 I took last time. I went stir crazy after 8 so I think I will be fine. I think you have to figure out what budget you need to cover your bills and then save like a mad woman.

MammaBear81 · October 2013

with my first four all of my leave was unpaid, with my last two I got 4 weeks paid, then used PTO and after that took about 2 weeks unpaid, and I'd do it again in a heartbeat. I loved that time off, and if we could have afforded it I would have taken the full 12 weeks (only did 10 last time, and 8 this time).

cecilyandgautam · October 2013

I took 10 weeks of unpaid leave. It was difficult but one thing to factor into your financial planning is that when you take unpaid leave, not only do you forgo your income for those weeks, but you also don't pay into your benefits for that time (unless your employer makes you send in a check while you're unpaid) so when you come back to work, you'll have catch up payments to make for your health insurance, health savings account, and any other benefits you may have.

So taking 10 weeks unpaid, for me, meant 2.5 months without pay and less take home pay for the rest of the year.

dizzycooks · October 2013

I get whatever sick time I have accrued (4 days!) and 5 days they 'give' me for having a baby. So I will have 9 days paid if I need any sick time before this LO shows up. I will take between 12 weeks and 6 months, we haven't decided, and it will be mostly unpaid. We save and plan accordingly. Frankly so much of my check goes to pay for DDs daycare that it's not that big of a deal because she will be staying home with me so it's not really my whole check we are losing if that makes sense.

peekaboo716 · October 2013

I hadn't been at my company very long when I was PG with my first. I had to deliver after my anniversary date to be eligible for any kind of paid leave. Luckily DS was overdue

That being said, I was required to use my PTO that I had built up for the first week of my leave, and then had some short term disability for 3 weeks. After that I used more PTO, and went back to work at 14 weeks.

From the moment I got my BFP, DH and I started saving. We "paid" what daycare would cost to a savings account. This savings account really helped supplement my unpaid time off, and also gave us some money to buy things that LO needed (like the crib, etc.).

SLGILL1978 · October 2013

I work for the school district in my town. They made me use any vacation and/or sick leave first before they would apply any Short Term Disability. The only thing is I only accrue time once a month (when we get paid) luckily I have been here for almost 4 years and never used any leave (all my OT made up for it). I took 10 weeks of maternity leave. So after all that I was still short about 1 week of unpaid leave.

Nita14701 · October 2013

I ended up using a combo of paid and unpaid. Depending on your eating habits you might be able to save some money by not eating out as much and menu planning. I'm always amazed how much we spend on food for such a small family and unfortunately their is some waste.

skibunny59 · October 2013

Yup. I was off for 6 months total. I only got paid for the first 6 weeks AND I had to use my own sick days in order to get full pay. Luckily, part of my maternity leave was during the summer when I'm off anyway (teacher) so I didn't really feel it then.

At my school, they will hold your job for a full year but they won't pay you and you have to use your sick days for the amount of time your considered "disabled and recovering from childbirth" in order to get paid. It sucks. I would have loved to have taken the full year but we just couldn't afford it.

Mrs.RockyM · October 2013

STD only covered me for 6 weeks, and then I had about 2 1/2 weeks of Vacation saved and the rest of my 12 weeks I just took Leave Without Pay. I think there's just lots of planning involved. Start saving now, put a little away each month so that you're prepared. Try and get lots of the stuff you'll need now, while you do have the income. Try also not making any large purchases around the time you'll be out. While I was on maternity leave I was able to make dinner nightly and lunches for DH and I - which saved us a lot of money. Plus we didn't go out nearly as much on the weekends since we had a newborn and didn't want to take her out and about during flu season.

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