Child maintenance question
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Frogdad
Posts: 7 Forumite
So I have a 4 1/2 year old son who has just started school and needs a childminder before and after school on certain days. His mum works full time as do I. All 3 of us have a good relationship and always put our son first. He stays with me on a regular basis etc and I have always paid towards his living costs. This has jumped considerably now due to the childminder costs which I don't mind contributing towards but I am at the point where I think I am paying to much. Question is should the child minder fees be included in the maintenance payment I am making. Some advice would helpful before I try and speak to his mum about how much I am paying. She's very good with money so will always endeavour to save where she can and no doubt squeeze what she can from me.
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So I have a 4 1/2 year old son who has just started school and needs a childminder before and after school on certain days. His mum works full time as do I. All 3 of us have a good relationship and always put our son first. He stays with me on a regular basis etc and I have always paid towards his living costs. This has jumped considerably now due to the childminder costs which I don't mind contributing towards but I am at the point where I think I am paying to much. Question is should the child minder fees be included in the maintenance payment I am making. Some advice would helpful before I try and speak to his mum about how much I am paying. She's very good with money so will always endeavour to save where she can and no doubt squeeze what she can from me.
If you go by the letter of the law yes it is to cover all her costs. However does he not need childcare on the days you have him?
If you’re paying more than the minimum now, might be worth reminding her of this.
But remember it is a minimum and in most cases the state is subsidising parenthood in some way; even if it’s £20 a week CB0 -
I think it's great you are working with your son's Mum Frogdad.
My ex-husband paid me the CSA recommended amount for our 2 children when we divorced but he also agreed to cover half of the extras/school related costs too. So I would pay for our children's school trips, uniforms, new school shoes, school lunches and then claim them back half from him at the end of each term.
This worked well for us - he earned a good salary and the CSA recommended amount was really derisory. By him paying his half on the "school extras" it meant that my kids didn't miss out on anything and I wasn't left covering all of the bases on much lower (self employed) salary than my ex-husband was on.
I used to copy him in on any lunch money bank transfers I made and kept a spreadsheet of all monies I'd paid out. I also kept a copy of all invoices etc so he could look at them if he wanted to (rarely did unless he was feeling that way out).
My kids are now 17 & 19 and he still pays the same CSA recommended amount for the 17 year old. He now believes he has "done his bit" for the 19 year old who still lives at home but is in a relatively low paid job so pays me minimal board (despite costing me the same in food etc when he did whilst at school and his dad contributed). Not a whinge just a statement of fact that whoever has the children most of the time ends up fiscally stymied a lot of the time. The Law of Unexpected Consequences applies!0
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