What do you spend your child maintenance on?

[daisychainer]

Just that, really.

What do you spend your child maintenance on?

This is prompted by a thread I read yesterday. A poster said they spent it solely on stuff for their children (clothes, uniform, school meals etc), but I sometimes use mine for general family stuff like food shopping, sometimes bills etc.

I am trying to move some of it into the kids accounts for when they are older too.

AIBU to not only spend that money on stuff for the kids?!

Tequila.

Well putting a roof over their head is spending money on them.
As is paying the gas and electric bills.

Well putting a roof over their head is spending money on them.
As is paying the gas and electric bills

Yes that’s my thinking too.

But reading that post yesterday made me question if I should be spending time t directly on the DC (or saving it for them)

at Tequila

I just treat it as part of my overall income, I couldn’t split it out.

All money I gets put into the same pot and spent on whatever household cost there is. I don't specifically spend that whole actual amount £29 weekly solely on dc items.

It just goes into the family pot. I easily spend £20.70 on our child per week. I have no moral issues with not giving myself more admin by accounting for it separately.
In fact, £7 pocket money, £16.50 on two classes per week... yup, I just accounted for it and more.
I also feed her, clothe her, take her places in my car, keep her in a safe warm house... and so on. It isn’t her money. It is my money to help me raise her.

It also goes into the family pot here to.

Life.
It just goes into the bank with everything else and gets spent, saved, put into my pension or whatever.

Life too

It goes into the pot. Kids need water, electricity, gas, roof over their head, petrol in the car etc as well as days out and treats.

But reading that post yesterday made me question if I should be spending time t directly on the DC (or saving it for them)

If you were saving the child benefits for them at the expense of, for example, feeding them adequately, that would be terrible. I think that saving the CB for your kids is only viable when you can afford it, and if you make too much noise about that, it is almost a form of ‘virtue signalling’.

It is to benefit the child now, not the adult 18years from now. To me, it is questionable to claim it for your children if it is solely for their savings account. While legally entitled, is it moral to claim a welfare benefit that is so blatantly not required.
It might be more virtuous to donate it to a children’s charity.

Bold fail...

But reading that post yesterday made me question if I should be spending time t directly on the DC (or saving it for them)

Mine paid towards my childcare costs.

I don’t separate it out and my ex doesn’t ask me to.

So it all goes in one pot. And I spend on mortgage food bills, holiday, clothes, children activities etc

If I need extra for the children, I will ask ex for it. Very high earning and very generous - a lovely combo!

Oh I don’t save anything for the children

My ex does. I think about £100 each a month.

Highhorse1981... if Carslberg made exes!!

😍🍻

Mine is less than half the childcare bill so that I suppose although really it just goes into the pot. It has increased this month by £50 so I'm thinking of saving that for the the children now that things are a little more comfortable but I definitely wouldn't feel guilty not spending it just on clothes/school uniform. Eating and a roof & childcare are first concerns!

Oh child benefit definitely goes into the pot.

But mainly I meant child maintenance from my ex, which is about £400 a month.

I totally misread the title.

my child benefit goes in a separate account which i over pay my mortgage (£50) a month, save for both dcs 20 each a month and then save for a rainy day.

my child tax credits go in the general pot and the child maintainace i get from exdp is split- he pays for all sports for children and all school things and gives me £100 on top of that, this way he knows where his cash is going and if i need anything he will always help me out, we are friends.

DS's maintenance "pennies" ( is it's a pittance!) go directly into a separate account. I generally save them for when he needs something

I get £6 a week for my 2YO. As you can imagine that goes really far

My elder 2 - £250 a month (60/40 shared care) ExDP recently encouraged me to use it for driving lessons so from next month that’s what it’s going on, as it will benefit the DCs too. He goes halves on school uniform/trips/birthday parties/extra curriculars too.

Going on holiday in July, and paying monthly for the trip so using it specifically from this month to pay for DD's fights and holiday package.

Usually though I just use it as added income as get DD whatever she needs through my pay so guess it's just added into the pot also.

I get it on a Friday so I use it to fund whatever we are doing over the weekend.