How to survive the financial fallout of starting a family

I’m standing at the edge of a financial precipice. I’m a 32-year-old woman doing a job I love. I’ve been beavering away solidly for 10 years and I’ve been working hard to climb my way up the career ladder. After starting out in London surviving on a pitiful cub journo’s salary, I now earn enough money to pay my bills, do and buy what I want – within reason – contribute to a pension and put a little bit away each month. But within the next three months, all that will change.

I’m pregnant and my first baby is due in six weeks. I’m one of the hundreds of thousands of British women only entitled to statutory maternity pay while I take time off from work to raise my child during its first year.

That means I’ll get 90 per cent of my salary for the first six weeks, followed by 33 weeks of pay at £139.58