What does child maintenance cover?

[Icantremembermyusername]

I earn very much less than my child's dad. I would earn more if I wasn't looking after our child. He earns what he earns because I have our child 12/14 nights so he can work but I can't.. He pays a good amount monthly. Can I ask for extra on top? Music lessons? Club fees? Uniform?

Does he pay the bare minimum (according to CMS), or do you have an arrangement where he contributes more than that voluntarily?

Either way, if you don't ask you won't get.

You can ask, and a decent father would contribute, if he wanted his DS to benefit from extracurricular activities. But child maintenance is all he’s legally obliged to pay.

Do you work? It isn’t clear from your post whether you do - you say you both earn less but also that you can’t work. If your child is old enough to be in school then the expectation is that you should work, if only part time. If you would only earn a low income, you can claim a proportion of childcare expense through Universal Credit.

Child maintenance covers everything assuming you mean through the cms? That’s all he needs to pay legally and it’s to cover “everything” you can ask him to pay more but legally he doesn’t have to

It’s one of those annoying things isn’t it, for some the amount they get will cover all the child’s expenses including extras, while for others you’d be lucky if it covered half a weeks food money. No harm in asking him to contribute to more, but if your child is school age why not use wraparound care so you can work full time? He should pay half of that IMO

You can ask, but he doesn't have to give it.

If you can't afford the clubs either he pays extra if he's willing or they don't go.

Could you ask him to pay some club fees etc directly to the provider.

Does he pay the minimum for his wage or above this, as according to the cms calculator? Does he earn more than 3k gross a month?

Not unreasonable to requests shared costs of other costs for the children.

CM is to cover his financial responsibility when dc are with you.
You can ask for an additional contribution but he's not obliged to do so.

Same situation here. Exh earns 6x what I do. He is generous with money as he respects that me doing the bulk of parenting allows him to earn what he earns. He sends me £600 every 4 weeks plus any extra I ask for. I pay for all of DS's essentials (food, clothing), hobbies and school lunches out of this money. I ask him to contribute extra to things like school trips, uniform and any extra bits DS needs for his expensive hobbies (he plays an instrument and horse rides so he needs things like riding clothes, instrument case, etc).

I don't ask for any extra for childcare costs as I'm on a low income so I get most of it covered by tax credits.

You can ask but you are supposed to cover those things out of maintenance

You can ask but he doesn’t have to pay more than the CMS calculation based on his salary.

Cms is bare minimum supposedly to cover everything no extras.
But if he's decent and amicable ask him. Doesn't hurt to ask.

DH pays extras for his dd. But I rarely get anything for mine. He had a school trip once £975 he gave me £30 towards some new trainers to take. Ds trainers are upwards of £80. I just said thank you that helps. I'm not going to argue or pick. I can't be bothered to be honest.

You can ask. My ex always paid half of those kinds of extras on top of maintenance, which wasn’t much.