he keeps threatening csa

Soubrette

LizzieS wrote: »

Council tax - adults only (though see water).

We would definitely be in a cheaper place with no children - we'd be in Canada No council tax there - I think they have a local income tax instead. I've not counted anything here though

Water - depends if you are on a meter or have a high rated house value due to needing a bigger size to accomodate the children, easiest way is to work out what you would live in and pay and count any excess you are having to pay where you are (no cheating though - got to stick to a smaller property of a similiar nature and in same area).

I've not counted anything here but we would definitely be on a meter if we had no children. As recommended by Martin - more bedrooms than people And I'd be as mean with the water as I am with the heating

Gas/Electricity

We have dual fuel at £70 per month - heating is not on upstairs ever and we rely on extra jumpers downstairs a lot of the time . Wasn't sure if it should be 1/4 each as the heating has to go on sometimes otherwise the house is cold(acceptable) and damp(not acceptable).

Nonetheless half the fuel cost (2 adults, 2 children) is £420pa

Car - apportion off work costs first. The rest is either running a taxi for children, shopping for clothes/food for all, days out/holidays - apportion equally.

I would guestimate that is about £40 a month for both girls - only assuming petrol costs as the rest are fixed costs for owning a car, we could do without (work is about 5 miles away for both adults) but we almost certainly wouldn't. So £480 per annum.

Food etc - split equally (teens usually eat adult portions, and very young ones have the added costs of nappies etc - only 3-10 could be a little cheaper).

I split the food 1/3 children to 2/3 adults because mine have very small appetites.

Clothes/school trips/mobile top-ups/after school activities - ouch those do add up!

Not to mention sanitary products/deodorant/I need tresomme shampoo not Tesco value etc etc :rolleyes:

My girls have £20 a month pocket money and have to buy their own top ups. The situation has just changed for my eldest who now gets an allowance but has to cover more of her own costs (and has to pay for the difference between tresomme and tesco value )

Thank goodness my ex doesn't squabble over actual costs to the point of having petty arguments over what he should pay towards - he, like me, just wants the children to have the same they would have had if we had still been together. And he doesn't bother over the bills either - accepts my bills are higher and surprisingly even doesn't bother over the mortgage (rent equivalent would actually cost more).

You are very lucky My ex doesn't squabble on what I spend - he just wants to give the least he can get away with. Another thought I had last night, I scrimp and save to go to Canada (use the old style board - go shopping after 9pm to pick up the bargains. go to Tesco/Asda/Lidl etc. Why should an ex say that he is entitled to pay part of our family food bill but not part of our family holiday, when I expend a lot of time and effort making sure that one budget is low so I can reallocate funds to the other?

Also was lucky enough to be a recipient for a pine bed from freecycle for eldest daughter (apparently cabin beds are the height of embarrassment once you are an adult ) again lots of energy expended to save costs. (I've been looking on ebay for one for months and was dead chuffed to be the recipient of this one for free - and it's in fantastic condition )

So there's an extra £900 per year just on fuel and petrol. Water bills would almost certainly be less but obviously unquantifiable as is the case for accommodation, council tax etc.

So we now have a cost last year of at least £7070 for the children as well as some unquantifiable costs.

So that's my budget for 2008 but compared to other family my children are older and do not require childcare, although a Canada holiday sounds highly luxurious, we stay with relatives and use their car so those costs are kept down, we have a food budget of about £75 to £85 per week so much lower than average (although not as low as some of the miracle workers on old style), our clothes budget is minimal (I don't skimp on shoes though), no one wears glasses etc except me and I get them online with free vouchers for the test, we don't drink or smoke (that probably keeps the food bill down!!). petrolwise I use petrolprices.com - our local pumps are more expensive than others but if I'm going on a specific journey then I check to see if I can fill up for cheaper.

On the luxury side: We do try and go to Canada once a year and try and do something else at the same time so it doesn't feel as if our holiday is just seeing relatives (we can't afford to go this year so will be going next year) and we do like to eat out as a family, we also have a dog . I suppose another luxury is that I choose to work part time, I'm looking for more hours at the moment but not having much luck, I don't want to work full time until both are at uni. However this also gives me time to cook from scratch, shop in several different places etc.

So in all I would say that I spent well over £7000 on two teenagers last year - the average family (I would guess) would spend more.

Although I wouldn't want to swap having the girls ever, the opportunity costs (I'd love to go to university), living in the UK, having a career, are obviously unquantifiable moneywise but as the PWC very real to me.

Sou

Soubrette

Forgot to add ex's contribution to pocket money (my spreadsheet only shows my contribution) so he pays £10 per month to each girl (we paid £2.50 a week making just over £20 per month in total) - there has been a pay rise and pocket money restructure this year so it is more expensive for us but this is 2008 expenses).

So adding the ex's money of £240 (making his contribution about £750 now ) we now have a running total of at least £7310 for two teenage girls on a relative frugal lifestyle with some luxuries.

Sou

mitchaa

If your 2 children cost £7300pa Sou then surely you should deduct the CB payments (£1726) and then whatever you receive in CTC. No idea on your household income but i would assume at least £545 element. Add that to CB and you have a helping hand of £2270. (Possibly more if you are on child elements)

Anyway, deduct the £2270 from the £7300, so leaving approx £5000. The £5000 should then be split both ways at £2500 per parent.

As to electricity costs, fridge and freezer etc would be on 24/7 regardless if you had children or not. Gas central heating/cooking would be pretty similar. I.e you can pop 2 pizzas in the oven and you will use the same amount of gas. You would have the heating on if it was cold regardless if you had children or not.

Anyway, you have come up with a £7300 figure, of which i believe the NRP is responsible for around £2500 of. (£208pm)

Soubrette

mitchaa wrote: »

If your 2 children cost £7300pa Sou then surely you should deduct the CB payments (£1726) and then whatever you receive in CTC. No idea on your household income but i would assume at least £545 element. Add that to CB and you have a helping hand of £2270. (Possibly more if you are on child elements)

Anyway, deduct the £2270 from the £7300, so leaving approx £5000. The £5000 should then be split both ways at £2500 per parent.

As to electricity costs, fridge and freezer etc would be on 24/7 regardless if you had children or not. Gas central heating/cooking would be pretty similar. I.e you can pop 2 pizzas in the oven and you will use the same amount of gas. You would have the heating on if it was cold regardless if you had children or not.

Anyway, you have come up with a £7300 figure, of which i believe the NRP is responsible for around £2500 of. (£208pm)

Hi Mitchaa :hello:

The purpose of the exercise was because someone asked how much it costs to bring up a child these days rather than to apportion who should be liable for what.

However, you did not address my other points - for example, my heating is on a lot less than in an ordinary household (and less perhaps than if we had a higher disposable income ) my food bills and clothing bills are also much less than average. I do this so that we as a family can go over to Canada to build a relationship with our family there. Why should the NRP benefit from my frugality? Putting it bluntly - my husband and I go without so that my family can benefit.

Secondly, my children live my lifestyle (this if the first year that we've had any child maintenance because of my ex's greed and avarice regarding his own money). Children are supposed to benefit from both parents income - you are telling me that it is in order to me to give some 30% of my income towards the upkeep of our children (not including any benefits*) but it is totally correct for the ex to pay less than 5% of his? He already refuses to have them 50% of the time, isn't parenting about 50/50?

Thirdly he had four years to give directly to his children but chose to not even give the figure you've given as 50% of my lifestyle, after benefits. He could have put savings by for the children, given them more pocket money, bought nicer clothes for them, paid for nicer haircuts, taken them for nicer holidays, he could paid for their phone top-ups. Instead he didn't bother, he bought school uniform and last year had lost so much interest in his responsibilities that he told my daughter to wear a 2 year old coat that was too small and didn't bother getting their feet measured. He's had his chance to do right by his children and couldn't do it. In those instances then I believe the CSA need to get involved. Again children have two parents and they, the children are supposed to benefit from both of them.

You seem to me more like Mark early on in this thread, there is some minimum cost to bringing up children and that is all the NRP should be liable for, and . I feel that it's the PWC and NRP that are divorced, not the NRP and the children.

However, if the NRP only wants to pay this minimal cost - then how do you feel about them coughing up childcare for all the free childcare that they don't have to bother with

Sou

*edited to add - 30% of my income once all benefits have already been deducted.

Strapped

Soubrette wrote: »

Depends on the child - mine cost considerably less to raise than Beatrice McCartney

But considerably more than a child living in the third world

In an effort to explain to my ex, I actually took the time to tot up what I could remember of 2008 expenditure and to show what a large proportion of my income was being spent on our children compared to the small proportion that he was putting in both as a percentage of salary and actual cold hard cash - unsurprisingly I might as well have saved my breath:rolleyes:

In 2008 my children cost me over £5670 which is more than a third of our net household income and probably about two thirds of my net income. This included a holiday to see family in Canada and a laptop to share for christmas (supposedly for homework :rolleyes:). I included food but did not include a proportion of electricity, petrol (both not old enough to drive so lots of ferrying to and fro), water, council tax etc as I couldn't think of a fair way to apportion this. I also no doubt forgot extra money for going out when invited to the cinema by friends, some clothes, extra food for friends sleeping over etc etc.

My ex husband I reckon paid about £1000 towards them both but alot of that would be doubling up on our things and so would be unnecessary. So I would say £500 for trips and school uniform.

We received just under £3000 in child related benefits

So my children last year cost at the very least £6170 and probably at least a few hundred more. This is on a fairly frugal lifestyle (no heating on upstairs, ever!, lots of cooking from scratch, clothes from Matalan, holiday in Canada mostly spent at relatives houses and taking 2 days out of school to take advantage of much cheaper flights etc), however they do have mobile phones, always go on school trips etc. In general though, they have a lot less than their friends.

Without the Canadian trip it would be £1500 less so about £4670, although one daughter will be 17 soon so that will be driving lessons instead I suppose and of course university beckons after that.

Sou

Flights to Canada are not exactly part of a "frugal lifestyle"...

Soubrette

Strapped wrote: »

Flights to Canada are not exactly part of a "frugal lifestyle"...

Have you read any of my posts in this thread?

No they are not, which is why I say that we have a frugal lifestyle with some luxuries.:rolleyes:

However going to Tesco at 9pm for the bargain veg is frugal
Making soup from said veg is frugal
Making jam from any cheap fruit is frugal
Keeping the heating off upstairs at all times is frugal
Not turning the heating on 31st oct and off 1st Mar - frugal (it goes on when it's really cold and jumpers don't cut it any more.
Hot water bottles at night - frugal
Having my haircut once a year - frugal
Watching petrol prices - frugal
Buying clothes from Matalan - frugal
Buying cheap potatoes and spending all day peeling them to mash and freeze - frugal
As above but blanching them and freezing them for roast potatoes - frugal
No drinking - frugal
No smoking - frugal
Making cakes for girls sandwiches every week - frugal
Making our own bread - frugal
Bulk buying our normal shopping when it is on offer - frugal
Shopping in different supermarkets for the deals - frugal
Nights out comprising free cinema tickets and bring your own drink - frugal
One 5 year old mobile phone between my husband and I - spend less thatn £20 per 6 month period - frugal

We have a certain income and it has to be allocated to make it stretch. I am extra frugal in some ways so that we can have some luxuries in others.

If I had a higher income then we would live in a different way - this is the way I choose to allocate my income to ensure that we have certain experiences but do not go into debt.

Most families would go on at least one holiday per year, often a foreign one. I don't think that £750 for a person on a holiday is massively excessive and we pay for it by cutting back elsewhere.

Sou

ladylumps45

hi all,been reading through the thread i started and it really interesting to see the different views.thanks to everyone whos advised me.i wonder if marksoton or mitchaa (or anyone else) could tell me how much the figure that hes short paying me by is reduced by each night he has my daughter.he has her about 6 nights a month?i reckon that him and his wife are having a good old laugh at me moneywise as these are the type of people that would do that.
i understand that it may be worth me just accepting the 125 a month and keep quiet.im not a greedy person at all but its for my daughter.

Soubrette

ladylumps45 wrote: »

hi all,been reading through the thread i started and it really interesting to see the different views.thanks to everyone whos advised me.i wonder if marksoton or mitchaa (or anyone else) could tell me how much the figure that hes short paying me by is reduced by each night he has my daughter.he has her about 6 nights a month?i reckon that him and his wife are having a good old laugh at me moneywise as these are the type of people that would do that.
i understand that it may be worth me just accepting the 125 a month and keep quiet.im not a greedy person at all but its for my daughter.

He will be assessed as having your daughter for 1 night a week and his liability will be reduced by 1/7th of the 15% if on CSA2 (will also be reduced if he has responsibility for any other children).

Please don't feel guilty about trying to do the best for your child. The government is an independent body and has stated how much a parent is expected to pay for their child, I hope my posts have shown that at least some (and I believe most) PWCs actually pay more than the prescribed 15% of their income as well as all the other responsibilities that come with being primary carer.

Sorry for derailing your thread btw

Sou

mitchaa

Interesting post there Sou, you sound like you gave your ex numerous chances to sort out proper maintenance and i agree in your case it was best to go through CSA. Have to give you a big wow though, you take moneysaving to the extreme and if it means going to Canada once or twice a year as a result then good on you.

Ladylumps...I worked out that he should be paying you around £197pm (If he is genuinely earning £22k) but he will get a 1/7 deduction which comes to £169pm. If he has them over 104 nights per year so that would be twice a week, this would drop down to £141pm. Additionally if he has any other children, i believe the discount is 2.5% per child, but i dont think this is the case here.

So you are getting £125pm and he should be paying you from what i can see £169pm. A shortfall of £44pm or around £10pw.

If you feel it is worth pursuing then go for it but tread carefully as it could backfire where you end up with nothing. Tough 1.

ladylumps45

hi sou!
no worries! thanks for the reply.sorry for being thick but i dont understand the deduction part .him having her 6 nights a month -how is that deducted from the 15% ?he has no other children and none living with him of his wifes either. thankyou.