Could you raise each child on £80 per week, to include all bills,food etc?

[lasagnesogood]

My exh gives me £40 per week per child to cover all bills except the mortgage for which I pay my own half.House joint owned. He originally agreed to share the expense of big outgoings but never did in the end.I have three kids.Only one of them sees him for one night overnight per fortnight. We will divorce soon.He is recently self employed so I expect he will hide a lot of money etc.He will say that he cannot afford to give me more money to rear the children in court despite enjoying plenty of holidays in the last year and wearing the best of clothes. In your experience, what will the Judge do? I can't afford to rear my children with this amount of money.My weekly outgoings including car loan and sustantial bills is £1200. I have had to use a lot of savings and take out a loan to get by despite working in a high paying job. If he doesnt have the money(or hides it etc) will the Judge increase my equity on our home when it comes to be sold. It is so grossly unafair that he has nothing to do with the kids and pays £120 per week for me to rear them.How the hell is this even legal???????

Your monthly outgoings are over £4k. That is an enormous amount. How much of that is specifically child related?
I'm not saying you don't deserve a fair amount, but £480/month CM may be appropriate given what he earns.

I can't get beyond weekly outgoings of £1200....we live in different worlds.

Ate you looking at buying a smaller home?

My monthly outgoings would possibly be 2.5k for the kids based on my car loan and fuel expenses.Taking all bills into account and considering there are four of us in the home 95% of the time, three of whom are the kids, I think that 2.5k is a fair average of their outgoings.He earns approx e60,000 pa.

CM is a flat percentage of his earnings. You are right to think that he may use his self employed status to make sure that the percentage comes up as £120pw or less. You need to accept that you can't change this

What are your housing plans long term ? Your ex only has to pay CM and will not be expected to pay 50% of the mortgage on a property that he doesn't live in

The money he pays is for the children not your bills ! If your a high earner I can't understand why you don't manage your money better

My exh gives me £40 per week per child to cover all bills

Surely the £40 per week is to cover 50% of his children's costs? Not all bills, and not even half the bills. So half the cost of the children's food, half the cost of the energy use of two children in the house etc.

I'm not saying its "enough" but if he doesn't live there and you are separated then all he is "obliged " to cover is half the children's costs. Not yours.

I have an average sized home with huge domestic and transport bills. Surely a couple who have three kids would spend this amount per week?The only difference is that he doesnt live there ande at the food.His transport costs were always separate.

We need a breakdown of the spending. £480 isn’t wonderful but it isn’t a pittance either. You are spending huge amounts, on what?

2adults, 2kids and 2 cats and our costs (all bills, food, fuel) comes to 1200 a month

CMS isn't fit for purpose.

My ex contributes the price of a bag of crisps per child per week.

He reduced his hours to part time and his girlfriend works full time, he did this to look after her kids and increase their household income.

He also gets a discount because he is 'financially' responsible for the kids who already have 2 paying parents.

Its a total joke, these men don't pay anything like half the costs, and they get away with it.

What specifically are "huge domestic & transport bills"

This could be anything from bog standard power, few sessions of after school club and a weekly rail card to .... full time nanny & chauffeur.

Either way, if you know he earns 60k you can see on the CMS website how much they would make him pay.

Your outgoings are nearly 5k a month??? Surely not???

Blimey that's a lot of expense!

maybe time to look at a smaller car and making some cuts? I sold the family home - the equity was my settlement - and purchased something I could afford without needing so much money - ex pays a fair amount of maintenance and I work so we manage - however - off my head my weekly outgoings - bills, car, phones are around £240 so no £80 wouldn;t cut it but my wages on top makes it workable - plus my mortgage is half that of the family home

Child maintenance isn't intended to cover all of the costs associated with raising children. £120 per week is

Of course the money he pays me is for the children but these expenses are for the children eg food,clothes,medical,household bills, tech etc.Ithought he was supposed to pay half the children's expenses?Surely these expenses include food and household bills

My monthly outgoings would possibly be 2.5k for the kids based on my car loan and fuel expenses.Taking all bills into account and considering there are four of us in the home 95% of the time, three of whom are the kids, I think that 2.5k is a fair average of their outgoings.He earns approx e60,000 pa.

2.5k not including your mortgage is insane.
You don’t have to spend that much, you choose to.
So he pays half the mortgage plus £350? It doesn’t seem so low when you consider he is subsidising your housing cost so much.
Yes it’s half his equity too but if you moved you would probably pay more for a smaller property.

Just seen you have 3 kids so his payment is £520 per month.

How old are your dc?

It's not enough but cm rarely is.

Ideally it should cover half of the food and drink each child consumes, half of their clothing costs, half of their school expenses, half of the difference in costs between housing only yourself and maintaining a home that is big enough for the children (eg costs of living in a one bed house is your responsibility, then half of costs over that is your responsibility and the other half his although that's bloody hard to calculate but a rough estimate should suffice)
Holidays, well, either each parent takes them and pays fully or one parent takes them and the other contributes half of only the children's costs.

Etc etc.

I bet if people did those calculations it would be more than a great many are paying.

posted too soon ....Child maintenance isn't intended to cover all of the costs associated with raising children. £120 per week is £520 per month which is is a fairly significant contribution - whether he is paying enough legally depends on how much he earns

Your outgoings are astronomical

Isn't he meant to pay half the kids costs ?And why is it only half when the kids are with me full time? Im trying to get my head round this sorry! My loan is£500 pcm and fuel is £400 for context.I will need to down grade my car asap as loan is nearly gone but my fuel bills will remain the same. I am not in UK so have to pay all medical/education/orthodontic/pharmacy bills privately.

You're wasting money (where I don't know). We have 4 kids, one in FT nursery and our monthly expenses (with mortgage!) are around £3.5k

Have you taken legal advice OP? You both need to complete the Form E and come up with an arrangement. The judge will base his decision on that.

You will need to rationalise your own expenses though - I have an expensive life and my non-child, non mortgage related expenses are nothing like that.

(and as PP say, the CMS isn't fit for purpose and the amount they deem reasonable to bring up a child is wholly unrealistic).

Just seen that he is also paying half the mortgage? So his contribution is significantly more than £520..

I have two dc both just under ten. I'd estimate their full costs (for one)
Food - 10 pw school dinners, 5pw snacks, fruit and veg, 14pw evening meals, 2pw breakfast (weekends only, at free breakfast club)
Clubs - none, swim with school
Uniform - 2pw (spend under 100pa per dc)
Clothes - 5pw (buy twice a year or so)
Utilities - 5pw (water, elec, gas)

So that's 44 per week per dc.

Xmas and bday gifts are something you can't expect to split with him. Nor are any trips you choose to tale the dc on in your time.