To reflect that ‘some chase ex for their salary not child contribution

[Genuinethought]

using ‘ ExDh’ as example as most common situation

Wondering genuinely …

If I was to work out how much extra having a child live in my house ( accounting for the cost of having an extra room for them )
would likely not come to around £500/ £700 a month, what I generally hear is paid in CMS.

Reflecting on the ‘ french private school’ related trending post…

I have seen many people chase and chase for exDH salary….when In reality there is no way that they are spending £700 a month on having a child ( the exDH £500 and £200 contribution of the other parent- due to the fact that the child costs is supposed to be shared , (accounting for them having child more frequently )

I wonder further about this, particularly when people live in a mortgaged property that is going up in price, yet the parent that has paid towards that housing will never have a claim on it …

When I stop and think the cost of my child’s room
their food
clothes
activities
holidays
savings
I just can’t see how it totals £500-700 every 30 days?

when you separate you may loose the ‘ bonus’ of another’s potentially greater salary… continually trying to access it, beyond what is realistic , seems unfair
AIBU

There wasn't an original set of circumstances and question though.

You (basically) said you didn't know why people claimed it cost that much because your DC don't.

As everyone is in a different situation we can only reply with our experience. My DC definitely cost me more than £500 per month. And that's without hobbies, clubs, savings or holidays. I can't afford them because ex doesn't pay any maintenance. Maybe if he did I could have more than the basics.

I only know of one person who managed to keep the martial mortgaged home upon divorce. The only reason she could is because she basically bought her ex out. He ended up with cash in the bank. She took on the mortgage by herself.

Exactly. Include that in the calculation of "half" and it'll be a rare non resident parent who comes close to contributing enough.

My ex pays zero

I easily spend this on two children every month excluding mortgage/food. Obviously it’s discretionary spending but it is still spent on the children rather than ourselves.

Both children are still in primary.

DH and I have no social lives so the children can participate in activities they enjoy.

Exactly. I don’t think any single parents will be “making a profit” from child maintenance which is what the OP is inferring.

I spend £80 a week on music lessons and over £50 a week on classes for another hobby, plus swimming and a uniformed organisation too. So well over £500 a month in term time. During the holidays its costs me a minimum of £300 per week for camps so I can work, so activities costs actually go up.

That's clearly separate from all the essentials like uniform, clothes, school trips, food, equipment for hobbies, breakfast/after school club etc which all add up. Never mind the odd day out chucked in for good measure too.

Granted, the hobby costs above are for more than one child, but it's really not difficult to spend £500pm on them once one expensive hobby like a musical instrument is added in.

It's stuff the kids love, it's good for them, they are hobbies that have wider benefits for educational attainment as well as confidence.

I'm very aware if how lucky m kids are in being to access this much extra curricular stuff- it's stuff I'd never have been able to do when I was growing up. But fundamentally, if parents have higher incomes, it's really easy to spend it on things the kids want to do, and if you have multiple children, things really can add up fast.

Yabvu

Most people get nowhere near £700 for starters.

I spend over £250 on petrol alone for school runs, appts, clubs etc

Then there is food - disabled kids with specific dietary needs don't get extra maintenance but the food bill can be through the roof. Many need the heating on more/electical equipment. That's before mortgage, clothes, clubs, school stuff, uniforms

I get under £5 a day to cover all of this. Plus a ruined career and no hope of a proper pension.

Child maintenance is an absolute pittance and the system simply enables deadbeat fathers.

I'd say it's rare for an ex to be paying so much that it's equivalent to the mortgage on the Res p's home. Why would the increased capital on the home have anything to do with the ex? He has a home too. Courts usually split things cleanly in the UK and by no means does the RP end up with a home funded by exh unless both a very wealthy and she has a shit hot lawyer.

Bloody hell, my ex was such a twat that it cost me 20k to divorce him and I was awarded 20 k towards a new home for me and my child having lost my home because he forced me out and I could not afford a barrister like him and didn't get legal aid though I should have done because he was abusive. If my parents hadn't been able to help, I would have been utterly ruined. As it is, I will never fully recover financially.

God I hate patriarchy and family courts and women excusing shit men not paying for their kids willingly as if the new woman is entitled to his bloody wealth, when usually wife 1 has facilitated his career I'm the first place.

Sorry... grumpy today but feels good to have a small rant. As you were.

Oh yes, absolutely @Foxblue

Yeh, presuming the father is the higher earner, which is what this particular thread is about I think, a mother cannot bring her x to court to take the children half the week if he doesn't want to take them. That's not a thing. Father's can't be made to take responsibility. (I guess that's for the best. But it is not an advantage for a single mother getting back in to the workplace/developing earning potential.)

A mother can't take her x to court to compel father to pay for half the childcare for the days he has refused to take responsibility for the children either.

And if fathers are paying the minimum but poor guys new girlfriends feel that's too much, don't worry, just up your pension contribution. YOu'll be much better off in your old age than the mother of your children, I'll put a wager on that one.

When my 2 were at secondary school it was around 130 a month for bus fare and school lunches alone (£5 a day for lunch/snacks and £3 bus)- each. that’s £260 a month (working on a 40 week school year) just for that. i would very easily get to £500 a month if i added in everything else. if they were younger and i was paying for nursery/wrap round care/holiday clubs it would be more. CSA calculation say nrps should pay 16% of gross income for 2 children - apart from the fact that many don’t pay at all _ how little do you think they should pay?

From the times

"The average amount of money spent on raising a child from birth to 18 in the UK in 2023 – including housing and childcare costs – is £223,256, according to investment platform Moneyfarm. That's a rise of 10% on 2022 and works out at about £12,400 a year, or £1,030 a month."

So half of that is £515 a month.

I think the child should benefit from as close to the lifestyle they would've had were their parents together as possible but accounting for 2 households to now pay for. I am the higher earner. I wouldnt want to be having lovely leisure activities and my kids not because I refuse to supplement my ex. So if I think like that why shouldn't a dad

it’s generally shit, and basically comes down to 1 household can’t be split into 2.

unless both of you earn enough to support yourselves, it can’t work.

1 house, 1 household income, does not support two separated families, pay two mortgages, two heating bills etc.

as I said, unless both of you earn enough to support yourselves, then there will be no “fair” option. Someone will have to go without somewhere along the line.

around £500/ £700 a month, what I generally hear is paid in CMS. 😂😂😂😂😂

Sorry but hilarious that you think that is standard. Many of us get fuck all because ex is "self employed" and knows how to hide their income from cms. Average salary is 35k in uk so most will be around 200 per month, the higher earning pay more yes but even then it doesn't make a dent on childcare let alone providing food, clothes etc. Also the NRP isn't up at the crack of dawn to sort out packed lunch or doing school runs if they don't have them during the week so they are hardly hard done by. And if the resident parent sacrificed their earning potential for the NRP to end up with a huge salary it's the least they can do to provide a proportionally tiny amount of their salary to give the child a better quality of life where they spend the majority of their life.

And yet you appeared not to really consider any posts that didn't agree with you.

What about childcare for before school-age? That's about £60 a day at the cheap end. In other places £100+. Per child.

Once they're at school, wrap-around care could be £15 a day, again per child.

£100 a month per child for a few extra curriculars is pretty standard. Many posters have said they spend far more.

So even when you cut those costs on half, you're spending a hell of a lot on children before you take into account the extra housing, food, clothing, transport and activity costs. And of course the biggest killer, lost earnings.

Your argument is based on bad maths. I'm happily married btw, none of this matters to me, but I'm not ignorant as to what RP are up against.

I get 75 ew for 2 dc
I have them 365 nights a year

I actually pot out money ( school uniforms and clothing allowances I put money aside instead of it being a big ohoh)
Food.
Transport.
Extra Curricular activities.
Pocket money.

It genuinely doesn't go as far as some may think. I know my dcs dad should probably be paying almost double it but it's absolutely not worth the agro to chase it.

I will point out my dp covers most the finances and we actually put away into the dcs trust funds.

The child shouldn't live to the amount the poorest parent can afford (especially since the more time you are responsible for the child, the harder it is to work around childcare, therefore the less money you can earn).

The child should have a standard of living somewhere between the two - eg. if one parent can afford 20quid shoes, and the other 200 quid shoes then the child gets enough for something in the middle.

After all, you can spend as much or as little on the child as you have. This isn't about either parent, this is about the standard of living of the child.

And as others have said, even if the non-resident parent has no overnights, it's still only 12% of their gross salary. Show me any resident parent who only pays 12% of their gross salary in expenses on their child! It's a bargain for childcare costs alone.

tbh all in I spend just under double that (including takeaways and I sometime use a chef service) but I have health issues so have to be very specific where and what I eat even if I cut down no way could I do it under 500....

And yet you appeared not to really consider any posts that didn't agree with you.

Exactly. I don’t understand the point of the thread other than for the OP to give her opinion. She certainly didn’t want any alternative opinions.

Never received a penny in maintenance. At one point my childcare bill was in excess of £1.2k a month. Even with them all in school, wraparound was more than £700 a month. I pay my own mortgage - the family home was lost to the mortgage company during the divorce.

Yes, children can cost a small fortune.

If you are advocating that maintenance shouldn’t be paid, for whatever reason, you are part of the reason why in many cases it isn't paid and why thousands of children are living unnecessarily in poverty.

I get £7 a week for 4 children. I would be over the moon if I got £500 for 4 never mind 1! I do think some people will never be satisfied with what they get.

My ex used to pay £600 in child maintenance every month. Now we do 50/50 and he pays nothing but I’m much better off as I work more, food bill is halved, he buys more clothes when they are with him, takes them for haircuts etc.

Goady post. It's not just about not starving your child and having shoes on. There's school supplies and books, clothes, prom, school trips, violin lessons, whatever sports clubs they're doing, the cost of ferrying them back and forth. Not exactly fair for a father to bring home 10k a month and for his child to not afford hobbies and school trips?

I don't think the way CM is worked out is fair.

It's not fair on the rp or the nrp who still has the same housing costs and doesn't get his share covered on his days.
It's not fair on the rp paying for and doing the majority of everything.

I don't know what the answer is, dc are much more expensive than they used to be. Growing up branded trainers were a real luxury, they were a Christmas main present, we now live in a world where my ds needed airforce 1s at a £120 a pop twice a year just for school. Yes I know I could have bought him cheap trainers but they wouldn't have lasted/he has extraordinary wide feet and you want your dc to fit in.

The cost of living and the way we want to live has risen dramatically and our wages haven't caught up.

I didn't get a lot of CM. I couldn't be arsed when he pissed about with the CSA and retrained into a better career. My dc or my pension didn't miss out, but if I'd have had an extra £500 a month they would have had more abroad holidays and learnt an instrument on top of their sporting hobbies that I could just about afford.

I think it's the reality of life as a SP, your dc won't have everything material wose that their peers in married families do. That's the price you pay for freedom and (I don't mean this to sound awful) living with the decision of who you made a child with. I don't think it harms dc to not have everything they want either.

I can’t believe any parent would start a thread like this and not consider childcare costs.