How do you split child costs?

[Rosebella215]

I’ve been with my partner 2 years and he has his daughter Friday to Tuesday every other weekend plus every Monday (he worlds shifts). He pays a set amount to his ex monthly which is £500.
Recently the ex has been asking for extra money to cover costs like school uniform, extra kit for a club etc. Now I know this isn’t entirely relevant but ex works from home 3 days a week so does not pay any child care fees as school is round the corner also. My partner is of the opinion that the monthly amount should cover the occasional new pair of school shoes or a new school bag but she is asking for extra.
What is everyone’s thoughts on this please? He has always said that when she is older things like bigger school trips he would go halves on but it seems these little cost requests are becoming more frequent.
Also I might add that for background, we know also recently that she has been referring to him as a ‘dead beat’ dad on her social media and tbh I have no idea why and I find it hurtful. He has never left his daughter down, always been there when he said he would, never missed a payment, we’ve taken her on holiday twice, all have a great relationship & we are buying a home soon and letting her pick out her room & decorate it etc (for the record I have no kids of my own).
My partner & his ex don’t have a good relationship & they have been through mediation etc. It basically came down to the fact that she was very controlling even after the split and would harass him on weekends when we had his daughter & it just fell apart. I personally think that she still wants him on demand to make her own life easier and isn’t related to her daughter….
Just to add also that his ex kept the old family home which only has a very small mortgage as my partner understandably didn’t want his daughter having to move. He has had to start again in that area as we have been renting the past few years.
That turned into a long story but any advice would be great!

I think the CMS minimum is meant to cover this. However..it often doesn't! Especially if the paying partner is a low earner. For school uniform and kits etc My DH asks for the receipts then pays half.

He tried buying it then asking her for half and she refused so now she has to do all the organising.

If he’s paying £500 a month for one child, plus looking after her as much as he is, then he is giving his ex plenty.

I’m his position I’d pay for half of things that cost hundreds like residential school trips, but nothing else. Your dp is right, he doesn’t owe his ex any more than he’s already giving.

Does she work? What’s her income? Her mortgage is small so that must help. If she is on benefits you can work out what she is getting for the child. Both parents should be paying decent amount of their income if he’s paying £500 how much is she? Even if she had £300 in benefits a month a child hardly go through £800 living expenses when not paying rent.

If she works part time and gets top it’s designed to be just about enough without CM as many parents don’t pay. It sounds odd that even with £500 a month she can’t manage at all and needs extras. That’s not say it’s not hard on low income but seems strange even at that level she can’t afford shoes.

Depends also on your income if you are loaded and extra £50 here and there or you are struggling and have no spare cash yourselves.

Her income is irrelevant tbh unless she is unable to work and was unable to work when they decided to have kids.

Of course her income is relevant both parents should be paying 50/50 costs if he’s paying £500 and she’s paying £100 on same income then somethings wrong.

If she isn’t working and the benefits plus £500 a month isn’t month again something sounds wrong. You can’t work out what’s fair until you have an idea of both sides income and outcomes. I’m all for dads paying all CM that due of course plus more when situation merits but have to have facts.

I don’t know either if her income is relevant however it is about £1200 a month I believe, but that’s 3 days, perhaps she could work 5 as there is no child care costs and works from home….we aren’t loaded whatsoever but live comfortably enough though we save most currently to buy a home…
The whole dad shaming bit worries me more tbh thinking about it…

Has he used the cms calculator? It may be worth a look and then if he is paying more, explaining to the ex that he pays over already so it should cover everything. £500 a month for one child that is having that many over nights is a lot of maintenance

CMS is meant to cover everything. Of course it often doesn't.
However £500 for one child is a decent amount so it doesn't sound like that's the case here.

CM is 12.5% of your gross income just played around calculator and income of £30k would be £256 month for one child. Is he on more then £60k?

@2020isnotbehaving

Of course her income is relevant both parents should be paying 50/50 costs if he’s paying £500 and she’s paying £100 on same income then somethings wrong.

If she isn’t working and the benefits plus £500 a month isn’t month again something sounds wrong. You can’t work out what’s fair until you have an idea of both sides income and outcomes. I’m all for dads paying all CM that due of course plus more when situation merits but have to have facts.

Well yes but it's irrelevant to how much he pays imo. If she was earning loads he still has to pay so it works both ways.

Her income is irrelevant because both parents are providing a home for their child.

Child maintenance "should" cover it all but it really doesn't. I'm this this position. My ex pays min maintenance and won't contribute towards clothes, shoes, school shoes, etc. the mother will be spending more than you think keeping her child in clothes that fit, shoes that fit. Maybe if she's asking it means she's struggling to pay for it all. Your partner is her dad and tbh if she needs some shoes then he should just bloody buy her some shoes. If she needs a new coat and her mum can't afford one yet; just buy her one. Parental responsibility means that he is equally responsible for her.
It's always the new partner moaning how much the "ex" asks for. Until you start paying for a child's food, school dinners, uniforms etc then you can't comment as to how much is too much.

He has her 5 days out of 14? In that case I think 500 per month is very reasonable.

@mummytotwoboys0600 it sounds like you’re projecting your own situation on to someone else’s which is entirely different. The RP in this situation is getting £500 a month, and the NRP is still providing an equal home, and caring for the child both on school days and weekends, so they probably do have a pretty good idea of how much a child’s food etc costs.

Like you say, parental responsibility means equal responsibility, so unless the mother in this situation is spending £500 a month directly on her child, after all housing costs have been paid (because the NRP is paying that too) then they aren’t taking equal responsibility.

I agree that if a child needs a pair of shoes or a coat or whatever the parents should pay for it, but if maintenance is as high as £500 every month, then the parent paying the maintenance should be able to deduct the cost of the shoes/coat out of their payment.

Thanks everyone for their comments. Just to clarify I am not this ‘new partner’ who moans about the costs, I am not new for starters and my partner is the one not happy with it, I simply wanted to know what others do.

Anyways, my partner has bought school uniform himself so when we have his daughter we don’t have to wash quickly overnight etc or if she gets tears at school. However his ex wasn’t happy with this as she wanted to buy it all herself and therefore wanted all the money. We have lots of clothes for when she comes to stay here and she never has to bring an overnight bag with her (I did this when I was younger and hated it).
Yes my partner is on a very decent salary and it was calculated based on him having his daughter slightly less than he actually does, but we aren’t going to go through all that hassle of changing it, so technically he pays slightly more than the official calculator says.
Does anyone have any ideas on what to do about the dad shaming bit? Or can’t we do much? We don’t want drama but equally worried about what might get said to his daughter etc…

However his ex wasn’t happy with this as she wanted to buy it all herself and therefore wanted all the money. well thats tough. He's provided uniform for half the time.

And just try to ignore the dad shaming. Can he unfollow her on social media?

There’s nothing you can do about what she says to her own child, even if she is in the wrong. All your dp can do is be a consistently good parent, and his child will grow up to form her own opinions of her parents.

@Rosebella215 a wise person once said you me that all any separated parent can do is parent well on your own time - you cannot control the other household - so as pp's have said try & ignore the dad shaming.
It sounds like your dp is parenting well, consistently & fairly.
Yes to halves on larger expenses but absolutely no to the smaller requests.
My exdp gave in to this type of carry on & despite maintenance of 750 per month per child & full costs for large extras, ended up covering all the small stuff too as exw just downed tools and refused to buy them things knowing he was a soft touch. He got totally played & by the time we split had no disposable income for himself.
Your dp is right to disagree & right to hold firm.

I agree all you can do is ignore the dad shaming. However the pressure of being the perfect in order to counter that negativity can lead to not wanting to be the bad guy when the child is older. This can lead to teens not learning the life lessons they need to so you are definitely best off aware that while ignoring the negativity is all you can do at this stage, that background crap is still going to make the parenting journey much much harder at points.

He should Just say no to requests he doesn’t feel appropriate to fund, but if she’s the kind of person to be bad mouthing him, best not to get into a conversation about the what’s and why’s.. she might start messing with the contact timetable once she realises this is the only lever she has.
And that’s not good for the child.

the perfect parent

My OH was paying £775 per month for 2 children in secondary school. They agreed this as part of their financial settlement with the understanding that she wouldn’t ask for anymore money.

The ink wasn’t dry on the settlement and she asked for more (and wound withhold contact if she didn’t get it). The demands kept coming.

And all the time he was referred to ‘as a pathetic excuse of a father’. ‘We use the term father sparingly in this house’. The kids only being allowed to refer to their dad as ‘him’. The EW telling the kids that dad didn’t contribute and they would ring up and tell him they wouldn’t visit unless he paid the money.

The mother refused to go out to work.

After 2 years my OH applied to the CMS for assessment (he was so sick & tied of all the demands and blackmail).

She now gets considerably less than £775 (when it dropped she stopped contact). But he was so sick of the badmouthing, blackmail & demands that enough was enough. She gets the CMS stated amount & he will contribute to other things if she can ask like a normal human being. Any sign of bullying, blackmail or vitriol the request is ignored.

Sometimes you just have to stand up to these bullies.

With my kids, unexpected costs seems to occur on a regular basis. We each simply pay what occurs when the kids are with us. Rarely is the other parent even notified about these occurrences unless their is s need to know.

At least in my experience, expenses for school age children can be pretty fluid and a fixed monthly payment might not be adequate to cover unexpected costs for items, events, and occasion that were not budgeted in the original calculation. For instance , my son's soccer team won their division championship which means that he will have several away games, no court would have calculated that in a monthly maintenance amount. No the less, it is an experience that weare pleased that he is having. Additionally, his sister wants to travel to see his games, that too would feel into the category of unplanned or unanticipated expenses. These things just come with having children and they don't happen in a timeline or framework tied to court calculations.

Your husband should do what his income permits and his conscience says to him is what a caring parent should do.

OP, I would not waste time looking at the ex's social media postings.Not many intelligent people are looking at social media as a way to inform their opinions of others. The people who know and have experience with your husband will have formed their opinions based upon that knowledge and experience. People who do not know are probably not really interested in his personal behavior in one way or the other. Many people find the need to share so .much personal information with other people who are not seeking nor have any desire to know that information to be odd and distasteful. The ex seems to fall in the category of one who is sharing more than anyone really wants or needs to know. That makes her rather than your husband look bad