What does child maintenance include?

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My husband and I are separating amicably. We want to agree the maintenance figure between us. Ex has asked for a list of what the costs of bringing up the children actually are. Things like food, clubs, clothes are easy but what else?
Should there be a contribution towards housing. For example? I am buying in area that is quite expensive to be near our daughter's school, is that part of the cost?
I have looked what it says on the government website but ex is keen to see the actual costs. What I have on my list per month so far comes to what the government recommends as a weekly amount so I think I must be missing something.

"actual costs are much lower than what it's suggested that I could ask for."

You mean actual costs (that I can think of at the minute but many more are bound to pop up) are much lower than what it is suggested he has the responsibility to give you.

Fixed that for you.

Start by billing him £20ph for the time you spend composing this list.

The biggest cost of dcs is your loss of income, income potential in the future and corresponding pension.

Also when you have reduced earnings from having dcs you can't buy as big a house so lose out on capital appreciation.

Those costs will massively dwarf food, clothes and swimming lessons.

actual costs are much lower than what it's suggested that I could ask for

I bet there are multiple things that you’ve not included.

My ex tried this years ago and his CO got involved. Apparently the list that he was given as a “wind your neck in an pay for your children” included things like paint for their bedroom every so often, new mattresses every so often, gifts for their friends when invited to parties, and right down to things like boxes of plasters.

People always think of the big things - food, shelter, utilities, school trips - but the little and the infrequent count too.

You ought to right would you like shared custody? He would have a rude awakening to covering sick days, school holidays and the possibility of having to give up his job. He has utter cheek.

I bet there are multiple things that you’ve not included.

It's possible this is the case. It's also possible that OP's right. The CMS payment for high earners is higher than 50% of the "average" cost to raise a child (calculated 0 to 18 in total, year by year would vary as the cost varies based on the child's age).

However, if a higher payment allows the parent to give her child an "above average" costed childhood then why not?

A rota nanny - a nanny that works 24/7 on a week on, week off basis - would expect a salary of around £60k-£80k a year.

So, if he's got the children 50% of the time and he's looking at what it would cost to get someone to care for them 24/7 for the other 50% of the time he could start there.

Obviously that wouldn't include feeding, clothing and housing the children.

Paying for your child means covering half of the costs for raising that child. This is not the same as covering your costs and half of the other parent's costs. Nor is it the same as paying someone to care for their own child.

Posts like this one are part of the problem and the reason why you get some men asking questions as to exactly what the money is being spent on: the child or the ex-partner?

In an ideal world, all costs for raising the child should be calculated (both Mum's and Dad's costs), totalled and then split down the middle with whoever had been paying less redressing that balance in further contributions. However, the practicalities of doing that just make it not fully possible.

I am trying to work out how to live on what CMS calculate! I still don't understand how a payment of 12% of his income is meant to cover housing costs, it doesn't come anywhere close!