Hey everyone,

We are possibly thinking about trying in around July time meaning that hopefully we will be lucky enough to have a summer 2013 baby I really want to take a year off work so ive worked out that il prob need a lot of cash to do this. Prob around £7000. So needless to say we have started thinking about putting money away in a savings account. I only took 3 months of with my 1st son so its really important for me this time to take a year of and spend it with both of them.

So has anyone else started saving yet?. Any tips /advice is welcome hehe

I have!!

We are also hoping to start ttc around July and I want to take a year off too. My maternity pay from work is not as bad as I thought but we will still need to put aside extra to make sure that we could cope. We started a savings account last month and put a standing order into it

I don't plan on saving for mine. You get 9 months maternity and SMP is only £20 less than my wage.

I have! I'm entitled to the full NHS maternity leave 'package', but I am the breadwinner of the household and there is a sizeable gap between what I earn and what maternity pay is. I'd like to take the full year, too, which means no earnings at all for the last 3 months...though we may see if I can go back to work after 9 months and have hubby take the last 3 months of my leave...something to see about nearer the time...

So anyway, yes, I would like to hit £15k in savings by the time LO is born, and we'll be starting to try in August/September this year...I'm just under 1/3 of the way there just on my own savings

What I do is give myself a set amount that is what I am allowed to spend for the month after the bills have been paid, and any excess goes straight into my ISA (or other savings account if ISA is full) on payday. I usually find I have some of my 'set amount' left over at the end of the month, and if that is the case, I put that in my ISA too, along with the next month's 'excess', if that makes sense?

We have a joint account for bills etc and then our own current and savings accounts, so it makes this sort of personal budgeting easy to do. Hubby does pretty much the same as me...though he earns quite a bit less than me, I pay a greater proprtion of my earnings into the joint account, so he can still save a decent amount.

We are pretty lucky in that we haven't had to cut down on trips to the cinema, eating out, etc...because we only do that stuff once in a blue moon anyway! So we don't feel like we're missing out in order to save

But I do take lunch in to work with me most days instead of buying it from the canteen, and I limit my spending on clothes and other 'treat' type things to when I think I really need/deserve it...though I'm REALLY limiting my clothes-buying now, as I'm hoping that in a few months time none of them will fit anyway

But yes, I'd really recommend an instant-access cash isa...I just got my yearly interest paid, and it was £94 Admittedly the interest rates are nothing like they were (I once had a rate of 8%, it was lush...), but they're still better than a lot of 'normal' savings accounts, particularly if you can leave a lump of cash in there for a year or more, while adding to it.

I have to admit that when I first looked at the sums, I panicked and thought that we'd never ever be able to afford a baby, but with some careful planning, we will be ok. Money will be tighter, especially with nursery fees once I'm back to work, but I'm hoping our savings will give us a bit of a head start with it all.

Good luck to you, just keep reminding youself what you're saving for if you're tempted to splurge, and you will get there...even a little bit saved regularly will soon turn into a lot

I have started saving for a 'baby fund' I figure in order for me to take off 6months for mat leave I need at least £4500 for my share of the house payments (husband and I pay about half for house expenses) - So I'm aiming to have £5000 saved at least before starting to TTC. I've booked my holiday of a lifetime, and paid for it already. So any extra money goes into savings again now.
I have had a 2nd job for the last 2 years initially to save for our wedding (June 2012) and kept it up sine we got back from wedding - as any extra hours I do goes into savings.
We dont have any kids yet, so WTT for our first, no date set yet as getting ourselves sorted. We have a house been in for 5years in Oct. So ready anytime soon when we feel we're both ready.
Husband is currently on a course for health and safety to try and get a better job with higher pay as well.
I'm from NZ we live in Scotland, so saving for visits home every 2 years also comes into my thoughts. It all adds up, so I'm saving whilst I can doing the trips whilst we can before kids. 30th in June for me, and I want to be prepared for the next step.

We are starting to save but i get around 4 and a half months full pay maternity which is quite good. I want to take at least 6 months off work and will need to save around £700 for each extra month I want off work.

We have 2 households to pay for so we have a lot more expenses than most!

Yes. I saved with both previous mat leaves and had about $12k. I got a years paid mat leave from the govt that almost covered the mortgage and for 16 weeks had top up from work. It was ace! The money I saved bought all my baby items and I had money to buy stuff and do lunches, pay cell phone bill etc. it was essentially a little salary for me.