Maintenance

[Clarinet53]

So my husband left in April. He's paying £72 a week for our 2 children. He doesn't have them overnight and doesn't take them out without me saying that he likes family time. Am I being unreasonable in thinking that given his salary of £26500 a year he should be helping more financially?!

Have you tried the cms calculator?

YABU.

Doing a calculation based on the amount & 0 nights, it's stating 81.30.. So not much more than you're getting. It's possible you got your original figure by putting in 52 nights or less a year. If he has them 0 nights then that may explain the 9 a week difference?

Sounds about right for salary. They don't pay a fair share but I also understand the flipside that they have to be able to live too so what do you do

It doesn't seem like alot but it sounds about right unfortunately.

DH knew a person in work, he had recently seperate from his wife and told DH they couldn't work out the differences so did it through csa, so the ended up charging him a fee and added on extras on top of his monthly payment. Added to the fact it took them months to get it into motion.

I guess that's something to think about if you think he should be paying extra.

Go through cms in regards to figure. Tell him your not together so unless it's kids birthdays school events he takes them out on his own as that's your break. His probably making you pay for these things too.

Morally yes, legally no sadly. It's about 18% of his salary, he gets the other 88% all to himself. Given that he doesn't have them overnight there's no argument to be made about him having to maintain a home with bedrooms for them. He could have a bedsit. Sadly, unless he chooses to contribute more, CMS minimum is it. Never mind what expenses come up, other than that, it's all on you. Of course if you only earmarked 18% of your salary for the kids you'd be rightly charged with neglect but no one likes to acknowledge that.