CSA making us poor! What other measures can we take?

[whydothiswhenyoudothat]

My husband and I worked out our budget last night and we cannot believe that whatever we have got coming in, it is going straight back out again! Our biggest outgoing after rent, council tax, etc. is CSA. My husband pays for one child. He is also in arrears because of CSA as they fucked up his calculations a few years ago! Every month, £500 is going out of his account then we have got to pay everything else, including our DS who is 2. We both work - I work part time and he works full time. He goes childminders which tax credits help pay for but unfortunately my husband keeps doing overtime so it means my tax credits have now reduced so we are paying an extra £150 a month out of our own pocket paying the CM. I'm only on minimum wage and my husband only earns 18k a year.

I will explain what measures I am taking to save money:

• I change tariffs every year with energy suppliers, broadband and car insurance to find the cheapest deals

• I am cutting down the use of gas and electric and just warming up using dressing gowns and water bottles

• I shop in Aldi and Lidl. The cheapest supermarket I can go to!

• I am meal planning and home cooking everything from scratch. No takeaways

• We don't smoke or drink

• I buy non branded products and go for the cheapest I can in order to save a few pennies

• Charity shops if we need to buy clothes

I am doing everything I possibly can. I have been awake all night thinking about it :( what do I do? I feel like we are paying too much CSA and he has asked for a variation form but they will not send one because he doesn't qualify! We are just about living. My worry is our cars are old so if one our cars break down which we need to get to work we we both work over 10 miles away, and take DS to and from CM, then we are basically fucked (excuse the language).

Is there any chance of him increasing his wage? Looking for a better paid job?

£18k is a very low salary.

I've seen how ruthless the CSA can be with some paying parents. They can, and do, take up to 40% of your salary and don't give a shit how that affects you. I also receive CM for my eldest 2 children so absolutely agree that fathers (usually men) should fairly pay towards their children's upkeep. But come on, 40% of their salary?! Not many people could survive on that could they?

How much does your husband owe in arrears? My ex is on about £24-£25k and according to CMS he has to pay £160 p/m.
Granted my ex doesn't have a partners income to add in (but I imagine your combined income isn't much different than my ex's sole income), but he also doesn't have a resident child for the CMS to consider either.

£500 does sound very unreasonable imo based on what the two of you earn and the fact you have another child too.

It seems to me that he is paying too much. He should take advice from the CAB.

CMS do not take combined income! Only the NRP

That’s a lot. My exH pays £530 a month. We have 3 children together and he is on twice your husband’s salary. How much are the arrears in total? Could you possibly get a loan to clear them? Perhaps the repayment would be smaller?

That's pretty much 40% of his pay.

So that's a lot of arrears.

How much are the arrears?

How long will he be paying off the arrears?

Going back to your original question OP, moneysavingexpert.com have some brilliant budgeting tools which will help you see where you can trim some costs.
Have a go at these, while also speaking with CSaA and/or CAB to see if the csa payments can be reduced.

If you want to private message me feel free. I'm both a recieving parent and a partner of a paying parent. I have some knowledge about the CMS. I need more information though which you may not want to post publically. Feel free to send a message and I'll see if I can help.

If it is £500 a month on a 18k salary he is paying a lot in arrears. How much is stress?

He needs to try and negotiate with the CMS. Or did they try and he prevaricated, and the CMS then imposed a %?

It's a very unusual situation, tbh.

Is he paying under CMS or CSA???

They have different rules...

Gingerbread say, 'If you currently use the CSA to receive child maintenance your case will be closed between now and the end of 2018' so probably a good time to move to CMS and renegotiate.

Just to add, when CSA moved my case to CMS, there were arrears and CMS spoke to both of us (separately, via phone) and an amount was agreed. They were happy to spread the arrears over 12 months.

It's a very unusual situation, tbh.

Not really, if you underpay you have to pay it back, same with any debt. My ex is currently paying over £500 per month for one child because he chose to underpay last year and thought he'd get away with it. The CMS like the arrears to be paid back before the next annual assessment, I'm not sure if it's negotiable or not. In my case it went to tribunal and the judge made the decision.

@PotteyPotterer Crikey that sounds stressful and I'm glad you got a result for you and your DC.

I was trying to make the point (possibly badly!) that not all NRP are forced to give up 40% of their wages.

It feeds into the crazy bat-costume narrative. I agree there's always a reason for 40%-ers.

I really don't think he's being honest here, on a wage like that he must have been seriously neglected his responsibilities for a long time. Maybe he just thought he'd get away with it, even if csa told him a really low amount bu mistake why would he think that was enough to raise a child on? The payments set are a minimum.

Something doesn't sound right. I'm a receiving parent, and the CSA I get has just been reduced again to less than £80 a month and that is with arrears. And to even get that it has to come direct from the agency (habitual non payer who has cash for everything else!).

Sit down and run the numbers with your DH. And use the on-line calculator. CSA make significant reductions for other resident children (that's how mine was reduced to virtually nothing). And no I don't mean this as get out of paying etc, it's just if you can't live and it is affecting the other children, then you need to appeal it - as it seems an awful lot for that level of income.

My ex husband earns 24k a year, he was in arrears for CSA too, but he only pays £188 a month for our one child!?
I think you need to contact the CSA and ask them to recalculate. That’s a ridiculous amount of money! Only HIS WAGE should be taken into account for maintenance payments. No other household income is used to calculate Maintenance payments

I’m not sure if the CSA are making you poor.

What is making you poor is your husbands lifestyle choice to have two kids and a part time working wife on a little over living wage job. These are expensive luxuries on a low income.

Some people have fewer kids because they can’t afford them or get another job in the evenings. Lots of women I know work back shifts in the supermarket or do night shifts as a cleaner when their partner is home to watch the kids. Others do virtual admin work.

I’m going out to work tonight, working 12 hours and will be home by breakfast time, OH will drop the kids at school.

Why don’t you study part time in the evenings/ distance learning so you can get a better paid job ?

There are lots of options for increasing your income that don’t involve taking money away from your step child.

That sounds like a lot. My ex is on over £60k , and he pays £600 a month. You need to ask them to recalculate

Wow @FairytaleOfWigan Someone asks for advice and you give final judgement. Assume you are a troll aiming to just upset or demean the OP .....or are you a Workhouse advocate come back to haunt us from the Victorian era?

I gave advice . Just because you don’t like it needaduvet doesn’t make me a troll.