Article last updated 11 August 2026.
Starting a family is one of the most financially complex decisions you’ll ever make. The choices you make around family life can shape your financial security for decades. With the right planning, you can feel confident and in control at every stage.
This article is for you if you’re planning to start or grow your family in the future. It’s for information purposes only and isn’t financial advice. You may need to speak to a financial planner to discuss your personal circumstances.
Here’s what to think about – decade by decade.
Your twenties are a time of building – your career, your savings, and your sense of what you want your future to look like. Starting a family may feel distant, but the financial decisions you make now will shape your options later.
Women are increasingly choosing to freeze their eggs in their twenties, when egg quality is typically at its best. It’s a decision more women are making to preserve their fertility on their own terms – and one that deserves the same financial consideration as any other significant investment.
According to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), a single cycle in the UK typically costs between £4,000 and £9,000, including medication, with annual storage fees of around £275 and a further £2,500 or so if you later use those eggs. Over a decade, the total cost can reach £11,500 or more.
If you’re employed, this is largely a savings question: how much can you set aside each month, and how quickly? For business owners, or if you’re self-employed, there may be more flexibility. You might be able to fund treatment through your business in a tax-efficient way. The tax treatment will depend on your specific circumstances, and you should take specialist tax advice before doing so.
This is also the decade when the gender pension gap begins to open. Research from Scottish Widows shows that while the gap in total pension savings starts at just £100 at age 22, it widens dramatically as women move through their thirties and forties.
This ultimately leaves women with pension pots around £113,000 smaller than men's at retirement, and a projected annual retirement income of £13,000 compared to £19,000 for men.
The habits you build now – contributing to your pension consistently and not opting out when money feels tight – are the ones that protect your future self.
Your thirties are often when family planning moves from abstract to real. This is the decade where financial planning becomes most urgent and most impactful.
Statutory Maternity Pay (SMP) replaces only a fraction of your salary: 90% of your average weekly earnings for the first six weeks, then just £194.32 per week (2026/27 rate) for the remaining 33 weeks. For many women, that’s a significant income drop. Planning ahead – building a dedicated parental leave fund, understanding your employer’s enhanced pay policy, and reviewing your household budget – can make the transition far less stressful.
Start planning at least 12 months before you intend to take leave. Know your numbers: what will your income be each month you’re on leave, and what are your fixed outgoings? The gap between the two is what you’ll need to save for.
Shared Parental Leave (SPL) allows couples to share up to 50 weeks of leave and up to 37 weeks of paid leave. If your partner earns more than you, it may make financial sense for you to return to work sooner and for them to take a longer period of leave – keeping household income higher overall.
SPL can be taken in up to three separate blocks, giving you flexibility around childcare arrangements or business needs. The key is to plan together and to check whether your employer offers enhanced shared parental pay – it makes a significant difference.
Child benefit is worth £27.05 per week for your first child and £17.90 for each additional child (2026/27 rates), but its value goes beyond the weekly payment. Claiming child benefit for a child under 12 automatically earns you National Insurance credits, which count towards your State Pension.
You need 35 qualifying years to receive the full State Pension, and time out of work caring for children can leave gaps in your record that are difficult to fill later. If you or your partner earns over £60,000, you may be subject to the High Income Child Benefit Charge – but it's still worth making the claim and opting out of the payments, because the National Insurance credits are only triggered by the claim itself. You can claim at gov.uk/child-benefit. If you or your partner earns £80,000 or more, you’ll pay back 1% of your Child Benefit for every £200 you earn over the threshold.
During paid maternity leave, your employer must continue contributing to your workplace pension – and crucially, their contributions are based on your pre-leave salary, not your reduced maternity pay. Your own contributions, however, are based on what you’re actually earning, so they’ll be lower during this period.
The real risk comes with unpaid leave. Once you move into the unpaid portion of your leave – or if you take an extended career break – pension contributions typically stop altogether. If you can make even small voluntary contributions during this time, it’s worth doing.
If you're on maternity leave, taking a career break, or working part-time, your partner can contribute directly into your pension on your behalf.
Even if you have no earnings at all, you can still receive pension contributions of up to £3,600 gross per year (you pay in £2,880 and the government adds £720 in basic-rate tax relief automatically). If you do have some earnings, the annual allowance rises to the lower of either your earnings or £60,000.
Contributions count against your allowance, not your partner's, making this a genuinely tax-efficient way to keep your retirement savings building during a period when your own income is reduced.
By your forties, the picture often becomes more complex. You may be returning to work after a career break, considering going part-time, or navigating the financial realities of a blended family, where one or both partners have children from previous relationships.
Reducing your hours or stepping back from work entirely has a compounding effect on your finances that goes beyond the immediate salary reduction. Your pension contributions fall. Your employer’s contributions fall. Your career progression may slow, affecting your earnings for years to come. And your National Insurance record – which determines your State Pension entitlement – may have gaps.
If you’re considering going part-time, model the long-term impact before you decide. Could you negotiate compressed hours, flexible working, or a phased return that preserves more of your income and pension contributions?
For women who've taken extended career breaks, the priority in your forties is to close the gap. Increase your pension contributions as your income recovers, consider lump-sum contributions in years when you have surplus income, and check your National Insurance record – you may be able to make voluntary contributions to protect your State Pension.
If you’re self-employed, the same principles apply – but without an employer contributing on your behalf, the responsibility sits entirely with you. A financial planner can help you structure contributions around variable income and ensure you’re not leaving tax relief on the table.
Blended families bring a layer of financial complexity that’s often underestimated. Whose assets are whose? How do you plan for children who may have different financial needs? What happens to your estate if you pass away? Who will get your favourite jewellery pieces or your beloved vintage collection of TY Beanie Babies?
The starting point is transparency: an honest conversation between partners about income, assets, debts, and financial commitments to children from previous relationships. From there, the key planning tools are a cohabitation agreement or prenuptial agreement (if you’re not yet married), a clearly drafted will, and a review of pension death benefit nominations – which sit outside your estate and need to be updated separately.
Life insurance, critical illness protection, and income protection are also worth reviewing. If you’re financially supporting children from a previous relationship, or if your partner is, the financial consequences of death or serious illness are significant.
From April 2027, unused pension funds are expected to be brought into the value of your estate for Inheritance Tax (IHT) purposes for the first time. They’ll be treated as part of your estate and potentially subject to 40% IHT above your available nil-rate band.
Everyone has a basic nil-rate band of £325,000. If you own a home and leave it to direct descendants, you may also benefit from the Residence Nil Rate Band (RNRB) of up to £175,000 – meaning the effective threshold could be as high as £500,000 for an individual, or £1m for a couple. Pensions passed between spouses and civil partners, or left to charity, remain exempt. Speak to a financial planner to understand the implications for your specific situation. Read more about the 2027 rule changes.
By your fifties, the financial decisions that felt theoretical in your thirties are now consequential. Your pension pot is substantial. Your estate is growing. And from April 2027, the rules around both are changing in ways that make a reviewed, integrated plan more important than ever.
This is also the decade when the cumulative effect of career breaks, part-time working, and lower pension contributions becomes most visible. Scottish Widows’ Women and Retirement Report 2025 shows that a five-year career break taken at 35 could cost you £69,380 in pension value by the time you reach 67.
If you’re in this position, your fifties are the time to act decisively. Here’s where to focus on:
Maximise pension contributions using carry-forward
The annual pension allowance allows contributions of up to £60,000 per year (or 100% of your earnings, whichever is lower). Carry-forward rules allow you to use unused annual allowances from the previous three tax years – potentially enabling contributions of significantly more in a single year, subject to your earnings. If your income has recovered after a career break, this is one of the most powerful tools available to you.
To use this, two conditions apply. You must have been a member of a registered pension scheme in those years, and carry-forward can’t be used if the Money Purchase Annual Allowance (MPAA) has been triggered. The MPAA is a lower £10,000 annual limit that applies if you've already started taking flexible income from a pension – it's worth checking before you plan any large contributions.
Whether increasing pension contributions is appropriate depends on a number of factors including your income, tax position, and individual circumstances.
Whatever stage you’re at, the most important thing is to start the conversation – with a financial planner, with your partner, and with yourself. The decisions that feel distant today often have a way of arriving sooner than expected.
Here are the questions worth asking now:
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This material is for information only and does not constitute advice. Tax depends on individual circumstances and legislation and HMRC practice may change. Clients should take personal advice (and tax/legal advice where relevant) before acting. Investments and tax advantaged investments can fall as well as rise and may be illiquid; eligibility and relief depend on meeting conditions.
