To ask how much child maintenance you receive.

[Sailingthroughtheweek]

I’m wondering where DC and I fit on the spectrum, just out of interest.

I receive £300 per month for one DC.
He lives 100 miles away and does no childcare at all, so that pays for breakfast/ after school clubs, holiday clubs and a bit towards her hobbies.

I’m very, very glad to be in my current position and not still married, so I’m not moaning at all, and also, I earn more than him so I don’t need more, but a £300 contribution to our DC seems low.

Minimum amount as he has been on benefits for years. Think its about £7 a week or something shit like that, I don't notice it.

He owes me about 10 grand though from when he used to work and refused to pay. As he's on benefits though they can't take anything towards the arrears so doubt I'll ever see it. He told me that was initially why he quit his job.

@ElephantMoth Well, for one he’d probably track me down and murder me ....

Secondly, benefits people aren’t interested in such small fry. They have bigger and better tax dodgers to chase.

None 🤷🏽‍♀️ he's dead, so theres that.

@LittleRa

One DD, we split time evenly (3 days one week, 4 days the next) and we both earn a similar amount. He pays me £100 a month direct debit, private arrangement, because I book and pay for activities such as swimming lessons, brownies, dancing, and the things that go along like brownie uniform, dancing shoes etc. We also both pay £40 a month each into a savings account for when she’s older, which is a child saver account but is linked to my main account and I have access to. I get the child benefit, I use to towards childcare (before and after school wraparound as needed).

After all the posts about feckless fathers and children being abandoned by their male parent, this seemed a beacon of rational and reasonable behaviour. I'm sure your daughter will recognises this in years to come. Some of the behaviour reported by mother's of the father of their children would make you question how humans can behave. These are their children, for God's sake.

Something I never understand. It is all relative to his earnings. But the basic cost of bringing up a child is not relative to your earnings. If it costs x amount to bring a child up and that is 90 perc of what you have, then that is what you have to spend to bring them up. How can you say I am only paying a fixed amount. It costs what it costs and that has to be split evenly or proportionately relative to income of parents.

@ clear blue. But it is not one standard cost. You buy within your means. From the food and clothes. To the hobbies. Holidays and activities. And where you live

My income isn't massive. And the children's father hasn't paid a penny in years. But I value the importance of swimming lesson scouting etc. I choose to pay for them. And good quality shoes. It means I have very little left but we make our own priorities.

It wouldn't be fair if a nrp had to pay say £500 a month if their income was minimum wage. Or a high earner.

I just wish they had more powers to get nrp to pay. And that non paying parents were frowned upon by society like drink driving etc.

@ClareBlue I always thought of maintenance as a way for the children to have an upbringing in line with what they'd have if their parents were together. Hence, it's calculated on the NRP's wage rather than a set cost to raise a child.

My ex (who pays nothing) can't understand why I "need" the amount that the CSA calculates (£280) and asks me all sorts of questions about my rent and bills and what's left for DD trying to work out how much I need from him in order to survive.

Personally I think if the whole £280 went on extra clubs, days out, better birthday presents then that would be fair as if we were together shed have all that.

I just wish they had more powers to get nrp to pay. And that non paying parents were frowned upon by society like drink driving etc.

They have lots of powers. There’s just no political will either use them fully in large numbers of cases.

@ClareBlue

Something I never understand. It is all relative to his earnings. But the basic cost of bringing up a child is not relative to your earnings. If it costs x amount to bring a child up and that is 90 perc of what you have, then that is what you have to spend to bring them up. How can you say I am only paying a fixed amount. It costs what it costs and that has to be split evenly or proportionately relative to income of parents.

Wealthier parents will have more disposable income to spend on their children than parents earning minimum wage though. So people do spend different amounts on their children. My DS has an expensive hobby (horses) if his dad was a lower earner we couldn't afford for him to do lessons, gymkhanas etc. So he just wouldn't do it. After the basics are paid like food and clothing, all other extras are proportionate to what parents can afford based on their wages.

If the RP is a high earner but the NRP is on minumum wage, and the RP wants the children to have expensive hobbies, private school etc, they would have to use most of their own income to do that just as they would if they were still married. You couldn't expect someone on minimum wage to fund all of that.

£2500 a month for the two children. ( that was 20 years ago) When I started working he paid the difference between my salary and the £2500, as my salary went up, his payments went down until it hit £1000 a month. Then he stuck at that until the children left university.

Years ago child maintenance was taken into account - so any payments from the absent parent would be deducted from benefits which left many parents living below the breadline as payments not often made weren’t well enforced and often meant court or huge delays access to any benefit help financial support - receiving just one benefit outside child benefit, is often a passport for other help which children need I.e council tax reduction free school meals also by law many mothers can stay in the family home until children leave education so will have mortgages to pay unless split ordered by court or private arrangement - the process now tries to make both parents jointly responsible for their children which is good but causes so much resentment from both parties so much so that the actual needed of the children can be sadly lost as mothers tied into contact with absent parent and father/mothers resenting paying for children they don’t see choose not to see - did you know there’s a loophole which allows absent parents to claim child benefit even if not with child 50% of the time pm me if want the law around this it’s such a minefield to navigate

200 a month for 2 kids

Fifty quid a week for one child.

I get what PP are saying about more expenditure on children if you have a higher income. That's fine. But what I see all the time is the mother spending nearly all her money on child rearing or the consequence of having children and the father being assessed at 20 percent, or what ever, of their income. I accept there might be housing equity etc tied up in this, but there does seem to be plenty of father's not being particularly impacted by the cost of rearing their children whilst the mother's make huge financial sacrifices and often the State (that's all of us) having to fund a gap in child rearing because father's won't do it and don't seem to be forced to do it.

And the whole 'look how great a Dad I am because I pay 50 Euro a week for my children' thing is nauseating.

I agree, a bit of shame and publicity might be a good thing. But maybe it's not great for the children to know how crap their father is.
They'll probably reach that conclusion anyway.

:24Longestfewdaysupcoming

Viviennemary

I've always thought it was very unfair that child maintenance isn't taken into account for benefits. It has never affected me just to clarify. But somebody getting 1800k a month maintenance and another getting nothing or £25 a week and they get the same state benefit top ups. How can that be right.

That leaves the RP at the mercy of the NRP. It used to be - and was changed because it screwed over RP.
This is why benefits ignore maintenance. It can be stopped ar any time. My ex is once again out of work and without a few child tax credits we'd be knackered.

And the control freaky thing about questioning the mother about what they spent the 18.75 per week they paid them for their 2 children on, and asking if any of it was spent on themselves and not the children...
Seriously, all you trying to deal with this shit must be pushed to your limits.

2 kids, he does 6 over nights a month and no contact in between. Nothing extra during school holidays and no other financial contributions towards uniforms etc.

£620 a month which is less than he should pay based on his wage but he got that amount put in the financial agreement and I need to wait at set period of time to recalculate

I get nothing. Ex is self employed so it wouldn’t be much anyway. It isn’t worth pursuing particularly as he has indicated he won’t make me sell the house when we divorce.

If ultimately this works out, I am fine with the arrangement. He trusts me to make sure DS is provided for and that we keep the roof over our heads. It has always been that way as he is crap with money, spends, takes risks, does not want a regular job etc.

He sees DS weekly and texts/phones in between. He occasionally buys him stuff when he has spare money. He sometimes takes him on holiday.

We are amicable and it works but until we are divorced I have the whole thing hanging over me so I really need to crack on and get things finalised.

My friend split from her partner, they have 2 kids. When she asked him for maintenance he said why do you need money from me? You get universal credit.

Absolute arsehole!

£17 per month. 0 involvement.
DC medicine alone costs £40+ per month…..

@Viviennemary

I've always thought it was very unfair that child maintenance isn't taken into account for benefits. It has never affected me just to clarify. But somebody getting 1800k a month maintenance and another getting nothing or £25 a week and they get the same state benefit top ups. How can that be right.

Because the NRP might lose their job or just stop paying on a whim! Then the RP is fucked when benefits take months to be processed and meanwhile they can't feed their children.

I will never begrudge anyone with kids getting benefits if there's even a slim chance it improves the lives of those children.

I get the odd tenner here and there, he's seen her once this year

Ranged from nothing, through £7 per week for years to £350 a month. It took a pandemic to wake him up and make him realise he needed to do the decent thing.
He sends an email every month stating he has transferred the money expecting to be congratulated for his benevolence- I never reply.
I fully expect him to make zero contribution to uni.

zero