Baby Number 3 is helping us rake in the £££ already and he's not even here yet!

Today I am £500 pounds better off than I was yesterday because I am having a baby in the next 11 weeks. One of perks of being pregnant here in the UK. The other one is not having to pay for prescriptions and free dental and eye care throughout your pregnancy, and the first year of your child's life.
The £500 is called the sure start maternity grant and is to help with any initial costs of the new arrival. Having 2 kids already, the only new thing I really need is a bouncy chair, so the £500 will just come in handy for Christmas gifts. Thanks Gordon Brown!!
Having babies equals money here. When I have the new baby I will get an extra £12.55 a week in child benefit (everyone from the poorest to the richest person living in the UK can claim this). I already get £18.55 for the "eldest" child and £12.55 for Sophie. I will get £545 for the first year of the child's life called the "baby element," and an extra £2085 a year in child tax credits for the child. This gets paid up front in to your bank account, you don't claim it on a tax return. This is all on top of the £3440 they already give me every year for having 2 kids already. So I'm officially £273.55 a month better off once I pop this baby. We will get £694.88 a month direct deposited in to our bank account (tax free) from the government just for having 3 kids (that's close to $1300 a month at the current exchange rate for those of you reading this in the USA). I have to say living under a somewhat more socialist government has it's benefits when you have kids. I'm sure not complaining! Oh yeah I almost forgot, the baby gets a voucher for £250 to start a trust fund, they'll get another payment from the government at age 7 if they are still living here. They can't touch the money until they are 18, but hey nice little tax free B-day gift. We can add to it when we want to, but we won't as we will have no control over how the kids use the money, so we'd rather have trust funds we control for education etc. So as the title says it's all £££ for now.