Child maintenance and extra costs

[Diamondmac]

Ex DP gives me £40 a week maintenance. AIBU to think that this should be for day-in-day-out costs like electricity, food etc. but we should go halves on additional costs like redecorating dc's bedroom/baby signing course/osteopath?

If you get maintenance for your DCs do you expect additional contributions for extras?

If I added up everything I spent on DC it's easily triple/quadruple what exDP does when our incomes are roughly the same. This doesn't seem fair. AIBU?

Does your DC have additional needs? It may be worth applying for DLA to help with additional costs, e.g. Osteopath, signing.

you match it and add on the tax credits and child benefits then it more than covers clothes, baby food and activities.

You might want to sit down for this, it's a shocker, ready?

Not all lone PWC get tax credits and child benefit.

"TrojanWhore no I'm not expecting our baby to contribute to bills, but the other parent!"

The other parent isn't living with you. I think you have confused two ideas.

Yes, it would be nice if NRPs paid more than the minimum that the Govt would enforce. But unless they are willing to do that, or you have a specific order for certain costs, you have to fund the way you want to live based on agreed maintenance and what you bring in.

If you need more, you can either go to court for a specific order or you can look for ways to increase your own income.

Decorating room so in your homemade is definitely your expense. And I agree with PP that at 12 months, you would not expect speech so it there must be fairly heavy involvement of HCPs to have reached that conclusion. What are they offering you on NHS?

My ex pays the legal minimum and acts like I should be grateful for it all. This month he never even paid that as he had a few sick days last month and his salary wasn't as much (he has a basic salary which the amount is calculated on, despite sick days). It means he actually spent it and came up with a piss poor excuse and I should just pick up the slack and get on with it. He'd never contribute more if OH or myself had a lower income one month, but double standards don't happen in his world.

He has DS EOW but doesn't put a hand in his own pocket during this time. His mother bought a camp bed for DS and he sleeps in her room. His mother or my family do the ferrying around for DS during this time. His mother pays all the bills and provides DS with food. His toys have been given to his mother by relatives or from family at birthdays and Christmas. I send DS with all the clothes he needs for the weekend and they don't even get washed.

Yet he feels his money is more than enough to cover everything: extra food bought specifically for packed lunches; money for school lunches; uniform; trips; childcare costs; the clothes I constantly replace because they get dirty in exs care, don't get washed and stained; the petrol spent taking DS to and picking him up from exs house; DS extra curricular sports plus their associated uniforms and competition costs; holiday clubs for said sports, as the normal classes don't run over summer but DS still needs to attend to make progress; the additional costs OH and I have in terms of mortgage and utilities because we a) needed a bigger home due to DS being alive and b) have higher utilities because there is a third person here who uses food, electricity, water and so on.

However, I'd never expect ex to pay for the decoration of DS room here, nor for the furniture etc.

Ex thinks his minimum amount is equal to what I spend on DS a year because CMS told him it was what he is expected to pay.

Some exs are delusional about their financial contribution to a child's upbringing and if I were still in a relationship with ex and he treated finances in this way, many would tell me to bin him. It's funny how in a relationship the costs of a child should be split 50/50 but once someone buggers off it becomes almost acceptable for them to scrape the bottom of the barrel.

I think they should pay more op, but unfortunately the way it is in the U.K. Means they don't have to.

And I agree with the gratitude thing. Why should you feel grateful - it's his child! My friends ex says shit like this -that she should be grateful cos done dad's don't see their kids!

He also asked her to pay for their Dds passport ( he wanted to take them on holiday) as "that's what his maintenance is for".

I remember back when my ex started paying child maintenance. (He hadn't for a good while until I contacted CSA.) he would text to let me know he had sent the money or to ask if I had received it and if I responded to say "yes, it's in the account" he would reply with "thanks would be nice" or "you could at least say thanks" yeah like he thanks me for doing everything outside of his £53 per week!! Not.

Oh and by bigger house I don't mean mansion.
Our area has no two bed houses and two bed flats for sale are a dime a dozen. We could either get a studio or one bed flat or a three bedroomed house, obviously the former wouldn't suit and therefore we had to spend more due to the existence of DS. However when ex was looking at flats he was looking a one beds, as DS would either be on a camp bed or ex would sleep on the couch EOW.

He doesn't understand why OH and myself had to go for a three bedroomed house and not a one bed flat, making our expenses dearer as a direct result of DS (not that I'm complaining, I wouldn't swap DS for the world).