Debts & Loans

Guide to help new parents manage their money was yesterday launched by the Scottish Government. Designed by the Financial Services Authority, the Parent's Guide to Money will be distributed by midwives to expectant mothers.

It aims to help families adjust to the changes brought by a new addition.

Launching the guide in Renfrewshire, Stewart Maxwell, Communities and Sport Minister, said he hoped it would provide reassurance. "Bringing a baby into the world is a very emotional and happy time. However, it brings new pressures to family finances," he said. "In the current economic climate it is more important than ever that people know how to budget and to ensure that they are claiming all the benefits that they are entitled to."



The guide contains detailed information on budgeting for the cost of a child, state benefit entitlements and information on borrowing and debt. Margaret Hamilton, a staff midwife at Paisley's Royal Alexandra Hospital, said she hoped the guide would prove useful to expectant mothers.

"It contains very important information," she said. "I have already started to give them out and many parents have realised there are a lot of things they didn't know about." Expectant mother Jennifer McGill, 23, said she welcomed the advice. "There are a lot of entitlements I didn't think I could get," she said. "It's really useful to have all the relevant information in one place, especially the contact list. You really don't know what to expect with the credit crunch so it's good to have a frame of reference."



The move coincided with a warning from experts that the credit crunch could discourage Scots from starting families. Professor Lynn Jamieson, of Edinburgh University, warned that previous recessions had an impact on births and marriages.

"A financial crisis of this scale can have an impact not only on people's thinking about having children but their plans for settling into partnership arrangements," she said.