Ex MIL keeps asking me for money

plus don’t get married focus on your son.

In what sense does getting married mean she isn't focusing on her son? Fo you think she will forget him after she says I do?

Maybe you should get your mum to do the same thing with your ex, and see how they like it.

Yes!!!! What a cheek she and her skinflint son have.

Absolutely not. OP is being a great mum.

She should see your son on her son's time.

I cannot understand how men and their families (usually, although I guess there are rare cases the other way round) think it is possible to feed, house, clothe and care for a child on £30 pw, and think they are funding mum to live the life of Riley (often when she is tied to school hours for work, so has limited earning opportunities). It is a travesty that successive governments have allowed thid to continue.

Caring grandma?! She's charging a fee to see her grandson 🤣

How will not getting married help OP’s son? Do you want her to give up the relationship completely?

I think you’re being unfair.

Are you the grandmother?

Why are all these posters saying "don't get married"? What's that got to do with her useless ex and cheeky MIL. It's any excuse to bash a single mum.
Her partner has rightly pointed out the MIL issue, he is supporting the OP in this.

Eurgh.

his dad should be providing the pocket money seeing as it’s HIS mother.

where in any of the posts has OP stated her new partner is a problem etc?

Get a grip 🙄

This is a great answer, though I’d add in “The £30 CMS payment. So she knows

Send him with pocket money to spend at granny’s. It’s lovely he’s got a caring grandma.

plus don’t get married focus on your son.

Or send a pack lunch and bus fare

Tell her you can't afford to pay her for seeing her grandson so won't be sending him to her any more.
If she wants to see him, she can ask her son to take him round and if she wants to be paid for it, thats between the two of them.

Ridiculous.
just say the £30 our son gets per week doesn’t begin to cover half of his food clothing and activities, there is no child maintenance spare to send you unfortunately. If you need money for when you’re with your child please ask his father in future. Then ignore any more requests.

If granny is having your DS during your ex husbands time then your ex husband should be the one “paying” her if required.

If you are asking granny to help out and baby sit for the day during your allocated time then it would be fair to give her a little bit of money towards a day out.

Neither of these scenarios are happening so YANBU. Granny is taking the mick and you need to nip it in the bud, in fact the first time she asked you should of said no.

I wonder what her circumstances are, and if she knows how small the maintenance payments are. I am a grandmother with a separated son. I’m trying to think of any circumstances in which I would ask my ex dil for money. Possibly if she wanted us to take them on holiday but we couldn’t quite afford it? but no, we’d just choose cheaper options.
But if your son likes going and is well treated, maybe you could ask her if she’s particularly skint, and tell her that you only get £30.00. If she’s poor, and really can’t afford to feed him, I would happily hand over a tenner. And I know my ex dil would do that so that I could see them.

It still shouldn’t come out of OP’s pocket. MiL’s access to her grandson should be facilitated and paid for by her son on his time. His access costs have already been deducted from CMS and OP shouldn’t be giving what amounts to one third of her CMS to MiL every time this happens.

I agree to stop giving money, but I have learned over the years that it is best to avoid an explanation. When she asks again just say no. If anything tell her to ask her son.

Once you start giving a rationale there is the option for this woman to come back with “yes but…” type response. Keep it simple. Say what you mean say “no!”.

Why should this impact on OP getting married again ? She has no earthly reason to continue contact with ex MiL if she doesn’t want to. She can simply refuse to hand DS over to her and tell her to arrange contact with DS on her son’s time, and ask him for the money. Then block and ignore.

I would try to enable a relationship with grandparents as much as possible, and think it's fair any genuine costs are covered (so when they were little that would be nappies, milk etc, and when older, about a fiver to cover food and anything like bus ticket). It's obviously trickier if the parents are split, so I think you should talk with your ex and agree who covers it. It is fair enough MIL isn't out of pocket, presumably she's near retirement and might be watching the cash. But she shouldn't be profiting out if it.

I would be temped to divide the £30 into an hourly rate and transfer her the £1.40 or whatever it equates to for the time your son is there but then I can be very petty.

Just say "it's on Ex's time, Ex needs to pay for anything DS needs." If it was on your time and she's living in poverty then contrbuting £5 or so might be reasonable but it sounds like she asked you for more than she spent anyway?

The issue has gone right over your head hasn’t it ? What’s your point here - that the OP should just put up with this shit because ‘think of the child’ ?