AIBU to ask for for financial help with school uniform from exH?

[browniebear]

Ok we don't have the best relationship and at times things are very difficult.
He pays maintenance through the CSA and has done for about 3 months for our dc's.
Dd is 7 and this morning I rang to say we're going for new uniform next Friday and could he put towards or at least pay for some shoes?
To which his reply was 'is that not what I pay u every month for?'
I said fine if that's how u see it I'll manage somehow and put the phone down.
Is it normal to get extra help for expensive times of the year? I do pay for brownies/Ice skating/ swimming and never ask for anything
AIBU?

YANBU at all - we all know that the 15% of an average gross (or is it net?) income that will not be nearly enough to cover the expenses of raising a child. I think you were right to ask but probably right too to expect nothing if that is his attitude.

out of interest, I wonder how many of those who are saying YABU are lone parents?

YANBU at all!

His children too, uniform is a big expense that should be shared equally as you are both the parents.

He is not some hero for providing the minimum he should each month! He shirking off bigger expenses like uniforms. His childrens uniforms need to be priority there up is not one single reason he cannot at least contribute towards them.

Probably going to be unpopular here but YANBU.

School uniform is cripplingly expensive and doesnt, imo, come under the "normal expenses" umbrella. Normal expenses are food, housing, basic clothing etc. Extras should be split 50/50 and as he isnt paying his half of their extras, he should stump up for the uniform instead.

My ex pays maintenance (admittedly below CSA rate, but read on...) but he pays 50% extra for the 2 paydays during the summer holidays on the understanding that I use it for uniforms, which I do. He also takes them out to buy them new shoes if they need them and doesnt question it. I buy them too if they need them btw, I dont make them wait until his weekend so he pays (as a friend of my mothers always did :( ) He agreed to three of them going to rugby twice a week, and with their transport and equipment costs as he knew that I couldnt take them and couldnt afford the boots etc but he could.

My ex realises that there is more to providing for your children than bunging £150 to the CSA once a month. We have had our moments, we are divorced after all, but I wish more exes were like him.

YANBU. I'm sure we all wish we had the luxury he has of just stumping up a certain amount each month and then never paying any extra for something we feel the children need or would benefit from (such as clubs, properly fitted shoes.) But when you are looking after them day to day you feel a bit more emotionally involved than that and end up spending more because you want to do the best you can for them. It wouldn't have hurt him to consider your request.

He pays through a deduction of earnings because before I got the csa involved he payed either not the agreed amount or nothing at all and wouldn't even answer the phone to them.
I think I'm finding it hard at the minute because it is the holidays and keeping the dc's occupied does cost more than if it were term time. Even a free trip to the park ends up costing once they see the ice cream van!
After reading the comments I feel I was right to ask but can expect to get nothing extra.
He did phone later this afternoon and offer for his mum to take her for shoes so I'm grateful for that.
Thanks again

Bless your heart. Its hard doing it all on your own. You only want the best. :)

yanbu

do you only spend x amount on your children each month then tell them sorry your allowence is done for now you have to wait until next month

unless money is very very tight why can he not help out. my ex does thankfully he is not petty and selfish as some ex partners are and he wants to see that ds gets the best he does nto think freudian might be able to buy herself something if i buy these trainers for ds how pathetic and sad if he did

If you are on a DEO then I wouldnt bother paying the cost of the call to him. My DD's father (and his wife, she almost got sacked for "losing" the DEO paperwork as she worked at his company) did everying he could to avoid paying.

He wouldnt give her a kidney to save her life, never mind a pair of shoes :(

And nice that he is abdicating his responsibility to his mum

I don't think yabu for asking. Ok so you get maintenece, but school stuff is bloody expensive.

FWIW I get £5 per week between 3 children, and get nothing else unless I ask for it. I asked for a contribution for uniform this year and so xp has bought dd2's tie @ £6.50.

I still have to buy 2 blazers, 2 badges, 2 pairs of shoes, 2 skirts, tights, 3 pairs of trousers for ds, 1 school jumper and a new pe kit.

It doesn't really rile me anymore, until I hear that xp is going to france for xmas to see his gf (that he has never met but is apparently in love with).

I find the more you involve an ex the more generous they are, when DH went to high school open evening, his ex refused to allow their child to even speak to him, marched her out of the hall without her even saying hello, then rang him with a list of all the things he was going to pay for (they picked them that evening). He told her to get stuffed - he was really upset that night and the child was crying in the school toilets. If he had gone along with them he would have paid half and probably more.

Contrast that with me who invited ex to high school open evening, took him uniform shopping with us, and he naturally chipped in as he felt included.

YANBU - just because nrp's pay a fixed amount, that doesn't necessarily correlate with the expenses that are the responsibility of the resident parent. I get on ok with my ex, but he still pays exactly the same maintenance that he first paid in 2006. I know he earns more than he used to, but he has never volunteered to increase it in line with CSA formulas, which he was mad to keen to stick with to begin with. At one time, he took a sight salary cut and he wanted to reduce maintenance. I argued that the children didn't eat less food because he had less money - they still needed the same level of support. Generally we are ok for money so I don't feel forced to ask him for more. Just as well, really.

Don't be a dick hairytale .

I don't think people who haven't been in this position have a clue, to be honest.

Of course he should help out with buying expensive one off purchases. Of course he should. For god's sake, people are talking about budgeting when the OP's only had the money for three months!

When my ex left our family income shrank by £2000 per month. It's not easy to adjust to that. I think it's much easier to pay a set amount per month and not worry about any other bills than to try to pay for everything throughout the year. And summer holidays are much more expensive than term time, that's a given.

My ExH pays a very small fraction of his net wages towards his children's upbringing. I pay much, much more, both in relative and absolute terms.

I personally don't think it is unreasonable for you to ask your children's father to contribute towards reasonable school uniform costs (which are becoming increasingly expensive as more state schools move down the restrictive uniform route).

YABU - and I was a single parent.

Clothing and footwear, which is what school uniform is, should be primary expenses that are funded from his maintenance payments.

Truly extraordinary expense such as school trips abroad are things that it's reasonable to ask him to chip in for.

That's what we did.

Didn't you feel you could ask for extra if you needed it, WetAugust?

He's a so & so - but now you know this. Most lone parents will go without meals themselves to provide for their kids, sadly many NRP don't. Your spilt is recent, and you now know where you stand. You can only be responsible for your own actions, as a parent - no point driving yourself nuts fretting about another's life choices.

I think you'll just have to accept that circumstances have changed, and alter your perceptions of what constitutes good quality of life for your child accordingly. Drop some of the extra curricular stuff so you can provide the necessities from your reduced income going forward.

Swimming is a potentially lifesaving skill, but ballet and brownies are just "nice to haves". Substitute a play date for the brownies so your daughter still has a bit of a social life, and doesn't feel deprived. Is it cheaper for you to take your child swimming rather than pay for lessons? Get creative and don't let the ex get you down over this - see it as a challenge to find fun, free activities. I shock myself sometimes with what I manage to come up with for DS to enjoy, given my budget limitations and his disability.

Even the cost of uniform can be reduced a bit, if you are prepared to be a bit creative. In the winter kids wear jumpers, so buy plain polo's that aren't logo'd for the time being. Master the art of fitting your own kids shoes so you can utilise the supermarket ranges instead of Clarks/startrite whenever possible. Improve your sewing skills, so that you can snap up second hand items/hand me downs from older friends whenever possible & alter them to fit. Refresh with machine dye if needed. In some areas if you are on benefits you can get up to £40 towards uniform from the council for reception, year 3 and year 7.

Definately double check which items of uniform are compulsory, and which are "nice to have". Do you have to have logo'd PE kit, or will the supermarket range do? Can you get away with NOT buying a dress/shorts for the summer term? George at Asda tends to be cheaper than Next or marksnsparks. Buy a plain lunch box, not a cartoon character one that'll be outgrown cos of peer pressure by 1/2 term.

If he wants his daughter to continue to attend Brownies, and swimming (which is not what I would class as a luxury ffs) then he should contribute to the school uniform. The confidence and new skills that are learnt from attending these group activities cannot be replicated kicking around at home with a friend. Maybe he should be cutting down on luxuries so that his daughter could afford to do those things.

I get both ends of the spectrum, and in between. DS1's dad pays nothing. No help with clubs, uniforms or shoes either. DD's dad pays maintenance every month (only works out to around £12 a week though), but nothing for extras. DS2 & 3's dad pays maintenance but also helps by paying half of other 'big' costs like shoes, uniform, clubs, coats, and baby equipment for DS3.

IMO, they'd be paying a damn sight more towards the costs involved in raising their DC's if we were together.

I explained it to DS2 & 3's dad as MORAL rather than LEGAL obligations. He now understands. Thank fuck!

As the wife of a NRP myself I say YANBU. What would be unreasonable would be to do what dss's mum has done and buy all the cheap supermarket stuff, then request that dh buys the rest claiming that there is 'only' all the expensive school labelled stuff left to buy! Considering we have Dss 3 nights a week, dh pays maintenance and all weekend treats and she obviously claims all the child related benefits, I would not call that fair! We will also have to buy all dss's stationery as his mum thinks all he needs is 1 pen in his blazer pocket (seriously!). Even if she'd have asked to go halves that would have been fine, but it's the fact that she's purposely left all the expensive stuff for dh to buy then portrayed it as if she's paid for most of it and is only asking dh for a small contribution [sigh]

Brownies & swimming lessons ARE luxuries. Food, uniform and a roof over the child's head are necessities.

We'd all like our kids to grow up in a country mansion, with a garden, lots of books and a pony. In the real world many grow up in overcrowded accomodation and rickets in on the rise.

Yanbu to ask him. My ex pays me £12 a week for our DD, apparently csa tell me this is the correct amount even though I know he works full time?

Anyway... he has given me a bit extra for school uniform and has said he will buy her a new coat. I'm very lucky so i'm told!

I am sorry about the way what I said came out. And I fully recognise that many children are growing up in awful poverty. We struggle same as any other family (but we are also very lucky witha lot of what we have) and it wasn't a dig at what you posted. I just felt angry on behalf of the op that she felt she had to pussy foot around her ex when he could probably afford to send her daughter to brownies and swimming if that is what has happened in the past. Her expenditure was being heavily scrutinised with no mention of how the father spends his money. She hasn't exactly spent all his money on new shoes and dancing lessons.

For herself I mean