to think my colleague is being an idiot

[SpamMarie]

My colleague has 4 children to his ex-partner. He works full time and she is a SAHM mother (the kids are all under 16 and 3 of them have special needs). He's pretty good at seeing his kids and babysitting as he calls it (although personally I think it can only be called babysitting if it's somebody else's kids) but he never gave her any money. So a few months ago she got CSA involved, and now the money automatically comes out of his pay.

He was ranting and raving at work because he has to pay £250 a month for child support. £250 a month for 4 children strikes me as a damn cheap deal. I don't have kids, so I don't know firsthand how much they cost to feed and clothe etc, but I'm pretty sure if it was only £250 a month for four of them, there wouldn't be so much financial stress in families.

Is that really an unreasonable ammount of child support, or AIBU?

Depends what he's earning, ffs!

It doesn't really depend on what he's earning does it? I thought CSA was 20% of net pay so he's paying exactly the same as everyone else but on a sliding scale.
Anyway, he's a knob for having to be made to do it and a knob for moaning about it.

This is almost hte polar opposite of the thread I was reading earlier about an XH who has his kids more than half the week and pays childcare and the OP was complaining he asked for help out of HER tax credits which SHE gets for herself..wont put all details sorry!

Shame this man wasnt married to her - theyd have made a perfect match!! It should be based on his earnings too, not just no of kids I think?

He earns more than minimum wage, plus double time at the weekend (we have some overtime most months), although I do not know the exact figure. Whatever it is, it's enough that he turns up hungover to work a couple of times a week, so he cannot be that skint.

Even so, does it not cost a lot more than £250/month to raise 4 children? If he were still with the mother, he'd be paying a hell of a lot more as he was the main breadwinner, so I couldn't understand why he was complaining.