Is anyone satisfied with the amount of maintenance they receive?

[MaxwellCat]

Just wondering as I see so many threads where people are unhappy with the amount of maintenance they get but Is anyone satisfied with the amount ? Or is everyone unhappy with the amount they get? As someone that gets absolutely zero and never has I am often shocked when people are getting hundreds but still think it isn’t enough (I’m talking £500+) I don’t think anyone should be grateful and of course every nrp should be paying for their kids but just wondering if anyone feels satisfied with the amount they get?

I get £1.96 a week for my age 16 child and that only just started this week.
I left the T W A T when my child was 2 weeks old after catching him shagging another Woman in My car.
Apparently he hasn’t earnt anything for the last 15 years and has now only declared £368 yearly earnings which means CSA can award my child £1.96 a week.
So no, I am not satisfied. The CSA or CMS are not fit for purpose and neither are these lazy bar steward men who like to put their
d I c k s wherever they like without consequence!

Receive maintenance, less than £500 but I think is a fair amount. When I was a single mum received less but then was receiving tax credits and child benefit. Is CMS mandated and think it is a fair amount. I don’t expect it to cover things like our mortgage as obviously that is something I’ll benefit from in the long term. Take my DC on holiday and days out with any money left over. If ex was a lower earner would just accept we couldn’t afford things like that just the same as if we were together and he was a low earner

I get £1.44 a week for my 6yr old so definitely not happy!

No my ex left when I was pregnant (had ivf) so not unplanned. Had an affair. 19 years later had no payments and ex went on to have 3 more dc who presumably he provides for. Has not had contact with dc either (ex choice). Child maintenance wrote off the case when they changed the system and I couldn't get the details csa needed to open with the new system because I didn't know if he worked or where he lived. A system that is not fit for purpose. I'm not sure what is a satisfactory amount but probably for me it would be regular payments (at least the minimum csa state) plus a meaningful relationship, because this shows a commitment.

I get £800 a month for two, but we also go halves on extras like uniform, school tips snd music lessons for example.

My ex pays the amount stipulated by CMS, but only because he is religious and his church leader expects him to do so in order for him to remain in good standing. Fine by me. I pay the lion's share toward the children's upbringing but he won't pay more than what CMS has calculated so whatever.

I get around £70 for 4 kids, but when I asked my ex to contribute towards uniform he told me to send his girlfriend my incoming and outgoings and she could do a budget for me because she's great at that 🙄

They set their situation up so she works full time, he works part time and looks after her kids to save money in maintenence, so that's nice.

4dc and £7 a week CM, no strangely I'm not satisfied/happy

I know loads aren’t happy I was more wondering if anyone is, of course no one will be happy getting a couple of pounds

Yes. I get £1800 a month for two kids.

I was happy with my maintenance payments, was an odd situation though as we married and had our DD in dubai so over there he would be required to pay for practically everything me and Dd needed until she was 8 would have been thousands each month ( it would also be very easy for him to get custody and stop DD leaving the country) so we agreed I’d move back to uk with DD which was preferable for me due to above and as I wanted to be closer to my parents and allthough was all very civil didn’t want to risk it getting nasty and not having option to move back to uk. Used to get £1750 a month plus flights and accommodation to Dubai 5 times a year so Dd can see him. Exs situation changed and he moved back to uk a year ago and not had any maintenance since he moved back, but know he hasn’t got it. on the plus side my daughter gets to spend lots more time with him now, he does say he will pay and back date once he’s back on his feet but I work now and with new partner so it’s not needed really but new amount will definitely be less anyway.

The amount that needs paid is related to the income of the paying parent. So asking if an amount is “ enough” or if the receiving parent is “ happy “ doesn’t really make sense. There’s not enough information about the context.

It’s like asking “ is £20,000 a good salary ?”. The answer is it depends on the job, the hours worked, the cost of living etc.

Let me turn it around . How would you feel about a single mum with a huge income who bought herself designer clothes, ran a luxury car and went on holidays to the Caribbean etc . Yet clothed her kids from the charity shop, took them to Butlins for the weekend and told them they couldn’t do any after school activities because they were too expensive .

You’d judge her, right? Would you say “ Well these kids should be grateful because some kids have no clothes and get no holidays”?

You'd expect the mum to share her good standard of living and her money with her kids.

It’s the same for fathers. Rich and well off dads need to pay more for their kids. It’s their kids right. No point in saying “ they should be glad of a tenner a week because these other kids over there get £7 a week. “.

The Uk is full of well off dads who pay little or nothing for their kids, while their mum and the kids scrape by. Lots of them have to be supported by the tax payer because their selfish bastard fathers don’t pay for their own kid.

SO no they don’t need to be happy or grateful.

Again I did not say anyone needs to be grateful. People do get the amount they are entitled to but still say it isn’t enough so I’m asking if anyone does feel satisfied which a few have said they are. You don’t have to respond.

you obviously let him 😳😳😳😳😳😳

I get a good amount of maintenance but it’s nothing like the standard of life my child would have if both parents are still together. The lifestyle of the paying parent is definitely a factor (as mentioned above) and children should have similar standards of living in both homes where possible.
If you wanted a certain standard of life for your child when you were together, really you should want to continue that as much as possible.
I work full time and I’m a higher rate tax payer but even with maintenance I can’t match the standard of living that my ex husband is able to provide. Holidays are only with him as our budget doesn’t stretch to it.

I get nothing and that’s fine as we do a 55/45 split with our time.

I’m not happy with what I get (50/week total for 3 teenagers) but my ex has always tried to get out of paying so something is better than nothing and the kids know how it works.
My DH’s ex should be happy with what she gets - very significantly more than she would be ‘entitled’ to if it went through CMS (and an amount that I’d be happy with for 3 kids not just 1) but she has regularly complained about it over the years.

I get 300 a month for DD11, we also pay half for uniform/activities/school trips.

We co-parent well and I'm happy with the amount

Reasonably happy as it was a bit more than the required payment in the country where I live and was definitely enough to improve the standard of life we could afford… but I did point out, when the ex alluded to how generous he was being, that there’s a cap in this country and he would have had to pay a lot more in the UK because he earned so much.

I get just under £500 a month for two children (worked out by the CMS calculator, but done via private arrangement), I'm happy with it. We coparent very amicably, I have the kids full time and he sees them one or two days a week at my house which I am happy with as he doesn't have the space to have them. If there are extra costs eg school trips we go half (if it's a cheap trip costing a tenner I don't bother asking, but he'll happily split the bigger trips) and he's also happy to contribute to things like uniform expenses / music lessons / after school activities - I just ask and he pays no questions asked.
We sometimes take the kids on day trips or out for dinner together and will generally split those costs 50/50.
I'm the higher earner and not entitled to any benefits other than child benefit - half of which I have to pay back as earning too much.
I feel very lucky that we get along so well - we split up before we got really bitter about things. Neither of us are bad people, just not good together, and he appreciates the care I give the children and I appreciate him for what he brings to the children's lives and how easy-going he is about things.

I didn’t expect my household (when I was single) to have the same standard of living as my ex as he earned more. He could take them for holidays abroad and I could take them on a caravan holiday. We were happy enough and I didn't have a problem with this. I’m now earning similar to what he was earning then and I certainly wouldn’t have been happy him taking a bigger than CMS chunk of my salary if the boot was on the other foot. Think the CMS rate is fair and have to be realistic that not going to afford the same standard of living as one household on a joint income

That is so lovely, how you both still respect each other

I was fortunate to earn more than my x.
Enough to live independently with our two boys.

He did see them every other weekend and pay maintenance to start with, but he saw them less and less and then stopped paying anything.

Thankfully I'd got through the most expensive nursery years by then and was doing well in my job, so apart from feeling sad that he'd turned into a deadbeat Dad that rarely saw them I didn't let it bother me.

If I'd struggled financially without his maintenance money that would have been different.

I'm fine with our voluntary agreement - far older, adult but has sn. I get £550 a month plus extra for specific reasons on request

considering i get zero and he doesn't buy anything for my son but expects visits, any one moaning about getting more should be bloody grateful they get anything.

ex and his new wife gets well over 8 thousand a month maybe more

she has 8 kids(all by different dads i want to point out, not one involved)
when they married(10 months ago) they took my exes surname and was legally adopted
ex has 2 with me so on paper he has 10 kids

there's 5 at home ages 11-18, she put up a 19 and 20 y old up for adoption so that makes 7(like i said all different dads),the youngest the 8th is 11 months, my exes so 8 kids by 8 different men

oldest 5 has a disability each and some multiple so are on high DLA each, my son gets this so i know how much it is
they get this x5

each DLA claim means disability element on UC per child, i get this as well so know how it works

2 adults are carers on carers allowance(hes down as a carer even though its not his DNA child) and gets a carers element on UC each so x2(as do i)

both adults get pip in their own right and the 17 and 18 y old claim carers for adults.
even though said child is disabled and gets high DLA
no idea why the system don't flag this up,
if your disabled enough to get high DLA and a adult needs to care for you how can you care for the same adult who disabled themselves enough to get high PIP, but that's how carers allowance work if you know how to play it

so thats
DLA high rate x5
PIP highest rate x2
CA x4
CE x2
UC for a couple over 25
UC child element x6(as children are disabled the cap is lifted)
CB x6
she also gets things for free off facebook and sells them on

as not one of these are eligible income legally i get zero.

he doesn't buy my son anything or give me anything privately, its all me
living of DLA,UC and CARERS ALLOWANCE as i cant work as son needs 24/7 care

my son, not me went very LC(NC for a while)as dads household is very chaotic and my son cant cope with visits and wont forgive him for walking out on him at 10 to then care-be a full time dad to 5 others

its not a co-parenting arrangement, my son is with me 24/7 its me being forced in to becoming a lone carer-parent overnight as dad left at 3am one night completely out of the blue for her and her kids and never came back

so when i read people moan they only get a few hundreds a month or he's not willing to pay this it gets my backup as there's many many of us that gets nothing