CSA- mother not spending money on child

emmy05

im sorry it seems that shes having the time of her life since you left, wouldve been much cheaper to keep your daughter if you were still together i guess?
the only thing to suggest is try to 'encourage' her to stay with you? or is that a problem?

kelloggs36

I agree with Zara here I'm afraid. You imply she gets tax credits, so she must be working, otherwise whatever money you give her (bar the first £10/0 per week) goes back to the Government, so she will hardly be lording it! As for keeping children in full-time education, well it can only be a good thing. How many full-time jobs can a 16/17 year old get? Not very good ones. It i to be applauded that children are encouraged to do their best at school, not frowned upon with suspicion. It shows she has their best interests at heart. I'm sure if the children were not so encouraged, then they would be having to work and earn their own money and she may charge them rent (I think that is good) so SHE won't be losing out either way.

samarnesen

im so totally lost with this thread now
years ago when i had my first child i never saw any of his csa money because i wasnt working which is fair enough so in answer to jpsmummys quote the mother must be working or she wouldnt get the csa money or the tax credits or has the law completely changed now
my son is now 15 and im getting his money cos both me and my partner are working

oh and he has a paperround earning himself £25 a week does this mean i have to give his measley £7 a week csa money back lol

Johnocyprus

Thank you to all who posted especially Cathy2702 and Cozworth806. There are other issues pertinent to this matter but these I think, would agitate all those disbelieving feminists all the more so best not go there.
Thanks again

jpmummy

kelloggs36 wrote: »

I agree with Zara here I'm afraid. You imply she gets tax credits, so she must be working, otherwise whatever money you give her (bar the first £10/0 per week) goes back to the Government, so she will hardly be lording it! As for keeping children in full-time education, well it can only be a good thing. How many full-time jobs can a 16/17 year old get? Not very good ones. It i to be applauded that children are encouraged to do their best at school, not frowned upon with suspicion. It shows she has their best interests at heart. I'm sure if the children were not so encouraged, then they would be having to work and earn their own money and she may charge them rent (I think that is good) so SHE won't be losing out either way.

sorry i didn't word it very well, she is not on benefit and not working either but does get tax credits as she is a student (this is according to the CSA). I am sure that someone will correct me if I am wrong but as a working parent I have no idea what benefits and credits are doled out. Apologies if I stirred up a hornets nest but this woman did not intend for EITHER of her kids to stay on at school until she was divorced from 3rd Husband last year and she realised she would have to get a job, so she went to college and made eldest stay on (he has now failed AS levels and she knew he would) so who is wrong then, yes encourage further education if it is the RIGHT thing for the child, not for the PWC -the "child" has been on a course which quite frankly unless you are at the top of your game, dedicated and look after yourself would be useless in the outside world and he rarely attended, but the CSA don't want to know that, they just see that sometimes the NRP is a cash cow to be milked until 19th birthday. I am not the NRP but his partner who has children and I can honestly say that I would NOT put anyone through what that women has in the name of extra money and to avoid getting bonafide paid work. We now have to wait until September to see if PWC can dream up something else to keep maintenance in place - sorry if you don't all agree with my opinion but when you are working and someone who isn;t is bringing home more than you then surely that is wrong.

jpmummy

Zara33 wrote: »

What!?! so your saying by encouraging the child to stay on at school and get a good education is a bad thing :rolleyes: as for the holidays and car perhaps the PWC is up to their eyeballs in debt.

Just to note - that if she has no income she should be afforded credit! so therefore WE and her other childs father are paying for the luxury's

Prudent

I really do think you would be surprised how much of that money actually goes on your daughter. I have a daughter who is also 16 and a nrp who makes a monthly contribution (after csa intervention only).

Here are just some of the things involved:

travel to school plus lunches £70 - £80 a month
clothes - around £45 including school uniform (yes she does buy her own - but out of money from me)
entertainment - varies but around £25 -45
Extra petrol running her around £10
toiletries -as clothes - although her dad does let her add some to his shopping basket £25 ish
haircuts £10 (averaged)

My additional costs associated with my requirement to have a family house against her dad's 1 bed flat

Mortgage £530 (based on my house being costing £90,000 more which is the case in my situation). I would certainly choose to live somewhere cheaper if I didn't have dd.. I have paid of my mortgage, but from my own earnings and if I hadn't made that choice this would have been the cost. The point I am trying to make is that family housing is much more expensive than a single person's needs
council tax £27
gas/ elec £30 (approx)
furniture/ decorating (her room) £10



food £60
Extra food for when her friends over £10/20
holidays £50 (averaged)

Total £902

I am also sure people can add to this list. I have also paid child care, music lessons, riding lessons, numerous days out etc

I think you have a bargain


I think the ema does sound unfair. My dd isn't eligible, but I would like her to take on some of her costs from it if she were -perhaps her school lunches for example. This is just because I think it helps teenagers to learn to budget.

I would agree with other posters that your dd may be playing you off on the ema issue. My dd lists among her hobbies winding up her dad and ripping him off where possible. Whilst I wouldn't obviously encourage these ethics, they are pretty standard teenage behaviour.

SuziQ

Prudent I can't say that ny 18 yr old daughter-or even all 3 of my children-amount to that amount in a month. I can't see that including the mortgage is totally fair-you can choose to move to cheaper housing if you want to when she moves on and will surely benefit from the equity when downsizing even in todays climate,as what you move to will also be cheaper!
Apart from travel to school and uniform anything else is what you choose to do-I can't afford to spend so much on my kids but they are not deprived and I refuse to feel guilty.
When it comes to the CSA-and believe me I have been on both sides of this argument-I can't understand the high amounts they can set on an individual basis. The government has a criteria for how much you need to raise a child,yet CSA assessments regularly far exceed that amount,which has never made any sense to me,when I was with my husband(to be ex!) and he was paying to his ex,and now when they are assessing how much he must pay as we have split and I am on benefit.

Prudent

SuziQ wrote: »

Prudent I can't say that ny 18 yr old daughter-or even all 3 of my children-amount to that amount in a month. I can't see that including the mortgage is totally fair-you can choose to move to cheaper housing if you want to when she moves on and will surely benefit from the equity when downsizing even in todays climate,as what you move to will also be cheaper!
Apart from travel to school and uniform anything else is what you choose to do-I can't afford to spend so much on my kids but they are not deprived and I refuse to feel guilty.
When it comes to the CSA-and believe me I have been on both sides of this argument-I can't understand the high amounts they can set on an individual basis. The government has a criteria for how much you need to raise a child,yet CSA assessments regularly far exceed that amount,which has never made any sense to me,when I was with my husband(to be ex!) and he was paying to his ex,and now when they are assessing how much he must pay as we have split and I am on benefit.

I do agree with you about the wild variations - it seems very unfair that some parents get a contribution that is far less than half of the costs.


I do think its fair to part include the mortgage/cost of the house which is what my figure represents. In my case I worked really hard to pay off the mortgage, so its not a factor. I gave the above to let the op get an idea of hidden costs.

When my marriage split up I began looking at small flats and ex -council properties to keep my costs low.My dd hated them all. At the time she was very traumatised (issues related to my ex , but not directly to do with the split). One day we visited a friend on a private estate where dd had lots of friends. A house was up for sale and to cut a long story short I bought it. At that time I had no money from dd's dad despite him being a high earner and myself being a much , much lower earner. It really hit me that part of this cost should be shared by him - it was about the costs of meeting dd's needs. The same would have been true if I had bought a two bed flat against a one bed. Hence my point about contribution to the mortgage. Not all people buy and the costs may just be about higher rent. This is obviously not a factor where a pwc is on benefits or gets help with housing costs.


In my own case, I use part of the money from the nrp towards bills. Any spare goes into a regular savings account for her as I don't want to give her too much to fritter away. Over the years I have saved up a fair bit and it will help fund uni for dd -or something else if she chooses not to go.

I also agree with you that my spending on dd is high - way higher than on myself. This is because I want her to benefit from her dad's contribution. This weekend she has a weekend away with her dad (rare!) so I have ordered her up something from the saving. I don't communicate this to the nrp because we have little contact. I guess its about trusting the budgeting skills of the pwc. I strongly suspects my ex thinks his contribution goes on me,
but short of tediously itemising it just has to be that way. The point of my post was that only some costs are transparent.

TriffidQueen

As so many others have sugested to Jonny, let you daughter live with you if you resent paying money to the mother. Let me tell you, teenagers are parasites, they bleed you dry!

This posting reminds me of my ex(who has not paid a penny for 14 years) When I turned up at court or for him to have access, he actually remarked that I had on new outfits, to his soliciter. What it had to do with him, I really don't know! The outfits in question were bargins that I had picked up at the markets etc... My income support went a long way as I was in control not him!