Child maintenance calculations

74jax

elsien said:

And then people wonder why new posters don’t come back. 

Jeez. OP asks a simple question about how to ascertain the reason for the discrepancy in payment amounts and gets told to learn how to support herself (despite being furloughed, which is out of her control) and to move to a cheaper area. 
I realise that at least one person is answering from the perspective of someone who feels the whole system blatantly discriminated against men but there’s is no need to be quite so judgemental. 

As usual on this forum, the OP did ask a simple question to start with but then added further info.  It's only natural to then take into account that information.  The OP even says  I guess that's subjective and largely dependant upon whether you're viewing the situation from a payer or payee's perspective. I'd also argue that it's pretty hard to make a fair judgement without any context, but I'm simply here for some guidance as to how the calculations are made rather than for a debate on the ethics of who should be paying what so understands we can't make a fair judgement as we can only go off what we have been told.    OP also says they are not after a debate as to who pays what, but brought up a scenario of he wouldn't buy shoes, so you can't really pick and choose on an open forum what people reply too, if it wasn't about that then don't mention it.
We are a money saving forum, it makes sense to pick out the OP has chosen to remain in a more expensive living arrangement, they mentioned this so we know this, and to point out that perhaps it might be worth investigating moving to living within means where you can afford more things. Also the OP mentioned a credit card debt so I replied maybe that is the deduction through a Debt Management Company, we simply don't know but can only advice on information that we get through extra posts.
Remember the ex is paying what is told to pay.  The CMS is at fault here, not the ex.  
I've been through the CMS and it was horrendous, I moved away from friends, family my job as I couldn't' afford to live where I was and remain afloat.  It took a good friend to sit me down and help me, all I'm saying is the OP has options - so yes the post was initially about how to get the CMS to show calculations, but then more info was given and the OP involved the ex and his lifestyle etc - not us - so we adjusted our replies to fit the extra context given.
Had the ex not been paying I could understand the annoyance towards the ex.  But the ex is given an amount and told to pay it and is.  How they live etc allows them to have the life they have, as it does with the OP too.
I think there's been helpful comments here, yes off track maybe, but sometimes you need to look at the bigger picture rather than focus on one thing, the OP can't control how the CMS work things out, how long they take to reply etc, but the OP can control other aspects to allow them to have a little more disposable income in the meantime.

burlingtonfl6

74jax said:

elsien said:

And then people wonder why new posters don’t come back. 

Jeez. OP asks a simple question about how to ascertain the reason for the discrepancy in payment amounts and gets told to learn how to support herself (despite being furloughed, which is out of her control) and to move to a cheaper area. 
I realise that at least one person is answering from the perspective of someone who feels the whole system blatantly discriminated against men but there’s is no need to be quite so judgemental. 

As usual on this forum, the OP did ask a simple question to start with but then added further info.  It's only natural to then take into account that information.  The OP even says  I guess that's subjective and largely dependant upon whether you're viewing the situation from a payer or payee's perspective. I'd also argue that it's pretty hard to make a fair judgement without any context, but I'm simply here for some guidance as to how the calculations are made rather than for a debate on the ethics of who should be paying what so understands we can't make a fair judgement as we can only go off what we have been told.    OP also says they are not after a debate as to who pays what, but brought up a scenario of he wouldn't buy shoes, so you can't really pick and choose on an open forum what people reply too, if it wasn't about that then don't mention it.
We are a money saving forum, it makes sense to pick out the OP has chosen to remain in a more expensive living arrangement, they mentioned this so we know this, and to point out that perhaps it might be worth investigating moving to living within means where you can afford more things. Also the OP mentioned a credit card debt so I replied maybe that is the deduction through a Debt Management Company, we simply don't know but can only advice on information that we get through extra posts.
Remember the ex is paying what is told to pay.  The CMS is at fault here, not the ex.  
I've been through the CMS and it was horrendous, I moved away from friends, family my job as I couldn't' afford to live where I was and remain afloat.  It took a good friend to sit me down and help me, all I'm saying is the OP has options - so yes the post was initially about how to get the CMS to show calculations, but then more info was given and the OP involved the ex and his lifestyle etc - not us - so we adjusted our replies to fit the extra context given.
Had the ex not been paying I could understand the annoyance towards the ex.  But the ex is given an amount and told to pay it and is.  How they live etc allows them to have the life they have, as it does with the OP too.
I think there's been helpful comments here, yes off track maybe, but sometimes you need to look at the bigger picture rather than focus on one thing, the OP can't control how the CMS work things out, how long they take to reply etc, but the OP can control other aspects to allow them to have a little more disposable income in the meantime.

Why did you do that? According to Elysien you deserved to keep the lifestyle you had for your grown adult self and your adult child and you ex should be made to fund that lifestyle
The OP went through a divorce and she has no right to the same standard of living. 

Huxley71

@elsien
Thank you 

@74jax
Not sure quite how you surmise I'm living beyond my means? Not that it's relevant to my initial query, but other than my mortgage I'm entirely debt free and (if you disregard the weekly shop at Fortnums and my little Manolo habit) lead a very modest lifestyle.

There may well be "a view" (to which I'm sure at least burlingtonfl6 would be partisan) that, were I to uproot my children and move to a cheaper area, they would simply "readjust", however, having already moved counties with them multiple times and continents twice due to my ex's career, I can assure you that such a view, in this instance, would be very much misinformed.

Clearly I need to know my ex's financial status to ensure he is paying the correct amount of CM, my entire point (which seems to have become slightly lost among the various posts castigating me for not sweeping my children up to live under a bridge in Kazakhstan and feeding them gravel henceforth...But obvs only if my adult daughter doesn't bag herself a Saturday job as CEO of Microsoft and knock me up me a granny annex at her Beverly Hills pad in the interim) being that I'm fairly certain he isn't. Rest assured I'm fairly confident I can restrain myself from donning a fake tache and rifling through his wheelie bin to ascertain what brand of cornflakes he favours any time soon

mason's_mum

burlingtonfl6 said:

Why did you do that? According to Elysien you deserved to keep the lifestyle you had for your grown adult self and your adult child and you ex should be made to fund that lifestyle
The OP went through a divorce and she has no right to the same standard of living. 

Don't forget there is another non-adult child in the mix here, and everyone would be super quick to condemn the mother for moving that child away from his father and making access more difficult.
Divorce is hugely emotive and I've seen it from both sides - there are never any winners.

74jax

Huxley71 said:

@74jax
Not sure quite how you surmise I'm living beyond my means? Not that it's relevant to my initial query, but other than my mortgage I'm entirely debt free and (if you disregard the weekly shop at Fortnums and my little Manolo habit) lead a very modest lifestyle.

There may well be "a view" (to which I'm sure at least burlingtonfl6 would be partisan) that, were I to uproot my children and move to a cheaper area, they would simply "readjust", however, having already moved counties with them multiple times and continents twice due to my ex's career, I can assure you that such a view, in this instance, would be very much misinformed.

Clearly I need to know my ex's financial status to ensure he is paying the correct amount of CM, my entire point (which seems to have become slightly lost among the various posts castigating me for not sweeping my children up to live under a bridge in Kazakhstan and feeding them gravel henceforth...But obvs only if my adult daughter doesn't bag herself a Saturday job as CEO of Microsoft and knock me up me a granny annex at her Beverly Hills pad in the interim) being that I'm fairly certain he isn't. Rest assured I'm fairly confident I can restrain myself from donning a fake tache and rifling through his wheelie bin to ascertain what brand of cornflakes he favours any time soon

In which case I apologise, I misread the situation.  When you said your ex wouldn't buy some shoes, I presumed (wrongly) it was because the child needed them and you couldn't afford them.  I didn't realise the ex would be paying for them on top of CMS and you had the funds for this.  I honestly did read it the other way in that you were asking for help and he refused so the child had to go without.    
I also read the point you made about working 6 days a week and 40 hours a week as though you had to do this to stay afloat.  Again, I read it wrong, and I totally jumped to the wrong conclusion.
It was myself who said about moving.  However that was before the back story of they have moved many times before - but as others have mentioned we either go on half facts or all facts and I mentioned the moving before you posted what you did.  We are a money saving site, and I was coming at it from my experience of moving to a lower priced area to have more disposable income - purely from my background as I wasn't in the fortunate position as you.
As for the rest of your post, I love it!  it made me smile and your writing is fantastic, and an excellent response too.    

burlingtonfl6

mason's_mum said:

burlingtonfl6 said:

Why did you do that? According to Elysien you deserved to keep the lifestyle you had for your grown adult self and your adult child and you ex should be made to fund that lifestyle
The OP went through a divorce and she has no right to the same standard of living. 

Don't forget there is another non-adult child in the mix here, and everyone would be super quick to condemn the mother for moving that child away from his father and making access more difficult.
Divorce is hugely emotive and I've seen it from both sides - there are never any winners.

According to the OP he doesn't see them anyway....so your point doesn't apply

Huxley71

@burlingtonfl6 
The irony here is that free from my ex's profligate nature I actually have a better standard of living! And I haven't suggested at any point that he should "fund my lifestyle" (which I can assure you is infinitely less lavish than you appear to imagine!) or even that he's at fault, I'd just like to be able to know one way or the other whether the CMS have miscalculated the figure in order to ensure that he is paying the amount (and, let's cut to the chase, we're talking less than 10% of his salary here!) that he's legally obliged to.

Edited to add that if you read my posts in their entirety, rather than just as a means to propagate your own personal agenda, you'll see my son does indeed have EOW contact with his dad (though obviously I'm working on the whole parental alienation thing along with my Machiavellian plan to bring him to his knees financially ) 

burlingtonfl6

Huxley71 said:

@burlingtonfl6 
The irony here is that free from my ex's profligate nature I actually have a better standard of living! And I haven't suggested at any point that he should "fund my lifestyle" (which I can assure you is infinitely less lavish than you appear to imagine!) or even that he's at fault, I'd just like to be able to know one way or the other whether the CMS have miscalculated the figure in order to ensure that he is paying the amount (and, let's cut to the chase, we're talking less than 10% of his salary here!) that he's legally obliged to.

It's funny because I see women on here who decided to have children with men who don't take any responsibility and walk away from their families. These ''men'' leave the women to bring the children up alone, with no help.
Your ex has paid everything he has been told to, up to the age one child is a grown adult and your better off financially than him......yet you still want that little bit more (less than 10% which you imply is nothing so why the outrage)
I'll save my sympathy for those parents who really are having a hard time

mason's_mum

burlingtonfl6 said:

mason's_mum said:

Don't forget there is another non-adult child in the mix here, and everyone would be super quick to condemn the mother for moving that child away from his father and making access more difficult.
Divorce is hugely emotive and I've seen it from both sides - there are never any winners.

According to the OP he doesn't see them anyway....so your point doesn't apply

OP said that the father reinstated contact after the maintenance payments increased...
Even if not, I'm sure it would have just been used as an additional tool to batter the mother with...
"well how do you expect me to see X when you've moved him Y miles away" 

Huxley71

@74jax    
Thank you for such a measured response, and absolutely no apology required. I totally appreciate posters can only go by the information to hand (something burlingtonfl6 is clearly struggling with) and in fairness the shoes were something of red herring and probably best left unmentioned!

@burlington6
I can't dispute that my ex has paid everything he's been told to, although for the sake of transparency, there was a prolonged period where he falsely claimed to be sharing the care of our son when he categorically was not and thus underpaid CM by several thousand pounds. Moreover, he didn't pay for my daughter "up to the age she was a grown adult" as he ceased any form of financial support when she was still only 17, so legally a minor.

Secondly, given that I've previously stated I earn slightly above minimum wage and my ex husband is on significantly above 100K p/a it would appear obvious that I'm most definitely not, as you suggest, "better off than him" I merely manage my money better - thanks MSE!

P.S. By all means save your sympathy for those who need it