To spend maintenance money how I see fit.

[Rainbow]

In a nutshell, I have 4 DC. 3 have one father and one has another. XH (father of 1) gives me maintenance every Friday for DS which I usually put towards the weekly shop. He has a visit every Sunday. This week, XH had some errands to run so drop him off an hour early (he usually baths him and gets him ready for bed before bringing him home). As he was still dressed DS asked me if he could go to the shops for ice cream. XH hadn't left at this point. I said I hadn't got any ice cream money to which XH said "what happened to the money I gave you Friday?" I said I had been shopping and needed electric. XH replied "That money is for DS not for you to spend on yourself or the others"
All DC are clothed and have a roof over their heads which is out of my pocket as is the rest of the weekly shop and all the bills.
I don't think IABU to use his maintenance money this way. It's not like DC go without while I spend it on nights out or clothes for me, if anything I go without so they don't have to.

THere are 5 of you in that house yes? So add up the total cost of living there, rent, bills, food, clothes, days out, ice creams, school trips etc, every last little thing.and divide it by 5. That is the cost per person.

Divide it by 2, because you must pay your half towards your children and then ask your ex how far back he would like to backdate the extra, because I guarantee that he isnt paying 50% of what it actually costs to bring up his child!

I was just going to post exactly what *Bogeyface" said.

Yep, as per everyone else - he can fuck right off.

Does he think his child requires no light, TV, food cooked in an electric oven or shower in an electric shower?

The freezer in which you keep icecream is run on free fairy dust, I suppose?

Oh no, but the OP is supposed to provide all that boring stuff, see? His pittance contribution is ice-cream money.

If you calculated DS1's "share" of your rent/mortgage, council tax, water rates, electricity, food, transport costs etc plus the money spent on his clothes, toys, school trips etc, I'm prepared to bet it would come to considerably more than the maintenance you receive for him. It could be worth doing that calculation and presenting it to your ex with a suggestion that maintenance be increased.

My ex suggested that I keep receipts of everything I bought using te maintenance money (presumably to show him) and anything left over would go into a shared account and used for birthdays and Christmas.

I politely told him no thank you and I'll just use it to pay the mortgage instead.

Of course your ex is an idiot but this is exactly the sort of reason so many non resident parents resent paying and cause a fuss.

NRPs resent paying maintenance because it gets spent on food and electric? Those would be dickheads.

And no, they resent paying it because they have to hand it to their ex.

It's not just NRP's who think that! Some other fools do as well

I also have 4DC. 3 to one ex husband 1 to ex DP.

Ex DP is minted and pays more proportionally than ex DH.

If I split the money as your ex wants you to it would be chaos in the house! It all goes in one pot, rent, bills, food, clothes and then spends.

Luckily neither of my exs would think of asking what I spend it on.

Mitten, what do you mean?

Actually ex DH did once. I don't think he dare ask a second time

I think she means this is the excuse lots of NRPs use not to pay.

But she spends it on alcohol/nails/clothes etc etc

I'll echo other posters: this is why he is your ex.

What a twat. Do not engage.

this is the excuse my ex and his wife use to refuse to pay "we dont think you would spend it on her" the fact is i spend a fortune on my 16 year old he/she does nothing except bitch i asked for him to contribute i often wonder why they feel i won't spend money on her she is not walking around naked and starving without their money so i dont see why i would suddenly choose to starve her if he actually did decide to pay

it makes no sense

what planet do some of these nrp reside on and how did the household budget work before the split ? some people have no idea about anything. jeni is probably right in saying some resent handing it to the ex.but then you would hardly hand it to the dc and tell them to pay the bills would you ?

Unless he has his DS half of the time, as others have said, whatever he is giving you will not be enough. It probably wouldn't even cover his half of 24 hour childcare fees if you weren't there covering his share for him, let alone food, clothes, heat, light, etc etc.
If NRP's aren't happy, then split residency 50/50.

Classic twat mentality.

Of course you spend the money on sheltering your child. That's what maintainance money is for.

abbis i think a lot of it is because they see dc from previous relationship as taking money from their household . my 2nd exh [4dc] -i left him-said 'as you're going on to benefits why are you speaking to the c.s.a [back in late 90's] wtf ??? i took a while to get his head round the fact that i was not expecting the moon but i was expecting support for the dc. it took awhile to sort out but to his credit he has always paid on time and the last dc finishes next year. but why do some people think that you divorce your spouse and the dcs though is beyond me, start a new family then moan because they are expected to finance two/three homes for dc. imo if you can't pay put something on the end of it/keep knees firmly together

Well, given that you spent the money on food and electric, and not the full lot on gigilos and crack, he can do one. Perhaps he could have bought ice cream himself? The tight twat could have sold the leftovers to your other children.

Exactly cptart.
If it upsets these nrp that much then let them take 50/50 residency.