How will you pay the rent/mortgage whilst you’re on maternity leave?

paddingtonbearinlondon: How will you pay the rent/mortgage whilst you’re on maternity leave?
I’m surprised at how much maternity benefits vary from company to company and country to country. How are you planning to cover things like mortgage/rent payments whilst you’re on maternity leave?

Answers and Views:

Answer by Baby #1 due in October!
It is absolutely crazy how maternity benefits vary between companies and countries. I live in the US and work for a university. The university offers relatively good maternity benefits as far as US maternity benefits go, but they’re still not great or enough to live on. Instead, I have decided to go a different route when the baby comes. I have been saving up all of my sick and vacation time, and even put every additional hour I worked into my comp time (this is time you build up from working overtime, so for each hour you work over time, you get 1.5 hours comp time and can take days off with that time). By saving up so much time, I will be getting paid my full salary while on maternity leave (until my time runs out, of course). Also, my husband and I have put a lot of money away in our savings account, so we can pay our mortgage or any bills that arise. Our savings wasn’t created specifically for maternity leave, but just anytime when we needed it to fall back on. My husband will also be working while I’m on leave, so hopefully we won’t have to touch the savings. Best wishes!