Is he paying enough?

[Havett]

Ex earns over double what I earn. He’s on 85k.

Cms calculates this as 860 a month. He pays 1,000. Nursery is 1,200.

I feel like he should pay more given his high salary. I know legally cms says 860 and he’s already paying more. But he does zero for dd. Literally nothing. Would you ask for more given he’s earning so much

If you ask for more, and he got funny about it, he may then go through CMS and pay you the 860

@Notamum12345577 he knows what cms would be. He agreed to 1,000 due to how much nursery is but it still means I am paying towards nursery and all other costs

By all means ask for more but legally he’s only expected to pay £860 and he’s currently paying £1k. I’m not giving him any credit for that but I will say I know/know of a depressing number of non resident fathers who would reduce their maintenance payments down to the bare minimum. Basically you might end up with less. So personally I wouldn’t bother unless I was really, really struggling.

They are bringing in new legislation so that CMS won't be based on income only but can also include things such as savings, property and other assets. Long overdue.

It may be worth waiting until its in force.

You are paying for everything for your daughter. The least he could do is pay for her nursery to enable you to work to pay for everything for her. I would ask. He may say no but he is her father and can afford to so he might say yes. I would if I were him.

Cms isn’t counted towards UC eligibility so if you’re not already claiming see if you can get help towards childcare.

He often says money is tight. He has a 1.5k mortgage and then pays me 1k. But surely he has more spare? I don’t earn close to that so I don’t know

Who's days is nursery on?

He’s paying more than he legally has to. Leaving the moral questions aside, the reality is if he stops giving you the 1k voluntarily, you will get less via CMS. It’s up to you, but I wouldn’t mess with this personally.

Maybe ask him to increase his contact and any days that he needs nursery for he pays?

Assuming you both had to contribute equally this is 2k/month to keep your child.
1.2k goes on childcare
800 is left for living expenses.

We could split this as
150 for food
100 for clothes / shoes
100 for entertainment / toys
50 for occasions (e.g. Xmas, birthday)

That leaves 400/month towards increased rent, utilities etc.. due to having a kid.

It doesn't sound too bad when you look at it like that.

His take home is about 4.8k/month. The 1k he gives you us 20% of his take home. The guideline says it should be 12% so 20% sounds pretty decent. Could he pay a bit more, possibly. Morally should he pay as much as he can reasonably support to keep his kid, probably. Should you also have to contribute to the cost of the kid, definitely.

In this case I think I'd take what he provides gratefully. Once your childcare bill goes this will be a pretty healthy monthly amount from him and it's always tough for parents financially during that nursery fee time!

I really wish that the CMS calculation rules would change so that they included a childcare fees element 😠

I get that it would be crazy complicated though - variable nursery costs, people arguing that child could go to cheaper one, or parent should have done a flexi working request… I don’t know how, but there should be some acknowledgment in the calculation.

I split childcare fees 50/50 with my XH and had that written into my Consent Order, so it was completely outwith CMS rules. I’d recommend that - but, only a possibility if you are married.

His high salary is accounted for in the CMS calculation, its proportionate. I’m not sure you can justify asking for more because you feel like you should, it isn’t supposed to work as compensation. You’ve spilt up now - so the benefits of his high salary have left with the relationship, save for the extent CMS calculate. He’ll just get pissed off and only pay the CMS amount.

Once your childcare bill goes this will be a pretty healthy monthly amount from him and it's always tough for parents financially during that nursery fee time!

Yes and nursery feels like a long time but it soon passes.

They can't include it because like it or not there's too much choice involved. Personally if a resident parent has fought for the non resident parent to only see their child every other weekend in those circumstances I'd say it's perfectly fair for the nrp to not pay for childcare

How come you're not claiming any help towards nursery fees?

Maybe you should look to earn more?

From someone offered 85p a week from CMS from a man who worked a full time job your so lucky. I didn't bother I don't want his money and 14 years on he still hasn't visited son

@crumbpet its hard when looking after dd full time. Ex doesn’t even see her so it’s all on me. I will try in future though

YABVU
Sounds like you’re more bothered about how much extra money you can get out of him rather than DD having more time and a better relationship with her Dad.

Then I don't think it's fair to look at it in terms of "he earns double I do". Look at it in terms of monetary amounts.

If you have full time care then you are getting the full whack CMS says you are entitled to and more. If you match what he's paying it should be enough. Personally I'd look at If you can claim "free" childcare hours and tax free childcare if you were to reduce your hours/days and therefore salary.

@PixieLaLar i’d be overjoyed if he saw her. He refuses.

Have you checked that you’re making the most of all the childcare help you’re entitled to?

For example, you could set up a tax free childcare account and get 20% of the fees paid, if you get UC you can get 85% of your childcare fees paid and if your DD is 2 or 3 you can get 15-30 free hours? I also think there are new rules for free hours coming in this year so worth checking if any of those apply to you too.

If you could reduce your childcare bill that would help for now and then you can just count the days until your DD is out of nursery!

He is paying £1000 a month for his DD.

Whether he should be paying more is the question being asked.

I think 1k a month is reasonable being completely honest. He earns 85k but what is his actual take home pay monthly? It’s rarely as high as people expect . Especially once pension contributions, a proportion of the salary being taxed at 40% and student loan deductions are taken into account. As a pp said, if you match his 1k that is 2k per month. I’d be devastated that he wants no relationship with dd. Can nothing be done about that?