XH and I have 2 DDs, aged 3 and 6. We live on the same street, which also contains school and nursery. I am on benefits as I am a student and have long term health issues. He has just finished a few months out of work.
The kids spend three nights a week with him, so when he was on single persons JSA/HB he was struggling to keep his (2 bed) house rent paid. The benefits system doesn't recognise him as having children at all, even though we are almost 50-50. He was doing a full 24hrs each time he had them, too. So I divided up the child tax credits and child benefit and gave him 3/7, which worked out at £55 a week. I then took £10 a week off that towards the £1500 he owes me for joint debts. I pay £50 a week to the debts.
Now he has a job, at minimum wage. It pays around £200 a month and is shift work in a kitchen, meaning he still doesn't know this weeks shifts beyond a vague outline. The plan is that he will still have them for the three overnights if possible but obviously can't promise it and won't have them for the full 24hrs each time. This will massively affect my studying and other activities - I may well have to pay for a small amount of childcare.
The csa calculator says he should pay me £23 a week, so I was going to take it off the money I give him so I hand over £22 a week. But actually he will be doing much less of the actual child related work, and I am struggling to meet the bills so that £22 a week would give me important wriggle room. But I don't want to leave him unable to pay rent on somewhere he can have the kids, and it does seem unfair that he has almost the same expenses (I buy things like school uniform, clothes, birthday parties etc but he still has to feed, heat, house them on his days)
So, AIBU to reduce the money? And by how much?