Cancel child maintenance?

[CherryPiePiePie]

Wasn’t sure where to post this and didn’t want to post in Aibu. But is it wrong to cancel a child maintenance case when it’s literally pennies? Just had the annual review through and it’s £6.72 a week for my children, just seems like an insult more than anything. It’s been this way since we split but the reminders make me angry how pathetic it is. I see posts saying it’s the children’s money and they have a right to the money, but £6.72 a week? Who really needs that it pays for nothing.

It’ll pay for ice cream for children in a summer time. Don’t cancel it.

I'd put it towards one of their hobbies, eg it would go a good way towards a swimming lesson.

No don't cancel it, it'll automatically recalculate should their income change, but also on principle I'd keep it.

It’s been years.

It doesn’t even pay for that, not from the ice cream van anyway and that would be one ice cream a week each

It’s not wrong if that’s what you want to do.

It can be worth leaving in place though as if the circumstances change it’s all set up already.

If you leave it going into an account you don’t touch then at the end of the year you’ve got £350 to spend or save or use.

Don't cancel it. You don't want "but she cancelled their child maintenance when they were kids!" being thrown about. Instead you'd be better off being able to show what a derisory amount you were receiving.

Thats £349.44 a year x whenever they hit 18.
Put it into savings for Uni or Driving Lessons. (We paid £300.- last summer for a block of 10)

It’s not I received £87 last year because of debts taking priority.

How is it so little? That seems crazy

Since 2023 January

Don't cancel it. Even if you don't need it, it will be pissing him off no end to be paying you ou

No it doesn’t he finds it funny he pays so little. That’s less than £10 a month

Isn’t it 12% of his wage? I’m really confused it’s not something I’ve had to deal with but how can anyone be earning so little that they pay less than a tenner a month?

He is on benefits.

Just take it. It'll piss him off if nothing else.

Set it to automatically in savings and ignore it. Check on it every year or so and spend it on something you know he'll hate.

My father's father left him and his mother before he was born. He never met him. My mother told me once that my grandmother told her that even though her ex paid her a paltry "two shillings" (or some other similar paltry sum) a month, she would never consider ever letting it stop because it was the single ONLY thing this man ever did to even vaguely acknowledge that he was a father.

Just open an account and get them to pay it there and ignore it. It's a couple of letters a year.

I would definitely keep it. Open a new account for it to be added to and don’t touch it all year. Come December you’ll have £350 to buy Christmas presents/food

It is ridiculous that debts (very often council tax) take priority over child maintenance when being deducted from benefits.

I am going to throw something random at you. You should do exactly what others say and put it into a separate account.

I think you should use it as play money and when I say that I mean, teach your children how money works and grows.

For example, you could put it in an interest account so they can see it grow and how interest works. Then they could sell some of their old toys and put that in the account. Once the money grows you could learn about stocks and shares together. You could make some crafty things and sell them. Just throwing out ideas off the top of my head I am sure you could think of something better.

I think doing something with the money, if you get it grow to a decent amount, firstly is a big "F You" to the waster that thinks he is getting away with paying nothing. Also, it might help to reframe the completely understandable resentment you must feel with what seems like a kick in the face amount and most importantly you could genuinely give your children some life-long lessons about finance and help them to create a sum of money that could be useful to them when they turn 18.

Not that I think revenge is a good thing, but if you do want to silently get revenge, success is the best kind.

Good luck to you though, when I read these types of posts I am always appalled at how unfair child maintenance can be and how much more difficult it makes being a single parent.

It is shocking that that is the pittance you are getting from him. Some men need their balls cut off.

Don’t cancel it. He might get a job - you’ll never know if you cancel.

He finds it funny that he’s not capable of providing for his children? Fucking scrote

I am in this exact situation. Ex runs a very busy self employed business but is claiming benefits as low income. He’s supposed to pay around £20 CMS a month but I haven’t seen a payment in over a year. Have considered cancelling it out of frustration on many occasions but I’ve come to realise that doing so only gives him an excuse or argument for why he didn’t pay in years to come. The whole time he’s being chased, there is a record of what he did / didn’t do and the evidence is there in black and white.