POLL - How much are you overpaying your CS by? Here's' the real numbers.....

[Sherry1]

didn't bother working... WHY?  She lived off of CS

[hrmanager]

I can believe it since it doesn't include child care, but childcare adds double that amount.  

In this area (NOT a major metro like Chicago or New York) 0-2 childcare is $13,000 per year alone.  We are paying $8200 for a five year old.

[Becki Kadingo]

My husband and I have been fighting the system for years now.  He pays his ex-wife 7800.00 a year to watch his daughter be unhappy and not taken care of properly.  Mom has brand new car, step-father has brand new truck and motorcycle, and her half sister gets everything she wants too while my step daughter gets nothing.  For christmas this year her half sister ( whom is 6 years old) got one of those motorcycles for children age restriction is 12 years old.  While my step daughter was supposed to get a go cart got a stero, she is 9 years old.  We have asked the courts to have the money the mother is given to be confirmed that it is being spent properly and on the child because the mom is bi polar and has a very bad spending problem but they told us that we have no reason to ask for this because it's none of our business.  I am so agervated and frustrated with the system it is unreal.  My husband was denied custody of the child because the mother quit her job and my husband works long hours.  We live in a very nice community while my step daugher lives in center city Allentown, one of the worse drug communities.  The system is not looking out for our children but for themselves so they can get more money and state grants.

[srgraumenz]

How does that work for 3 kids?   You can't take the whole amt of each dollar figure for each age bracket they fall in as that is doubling up on some of the expenses(housing,utilities,etc)....
Plus i agree that it needs to be reduced by the percentage the child is in the father's care NOT by the amt of income the NCP makes as my husband's X is living off the CS.....and that is very evident when she has been made to show her monthly expenses.....

[catherine]

I will say that those numbers are totally unrealistic.  Childcare for an infant under 2 yrs old is $175 per week in my area of FL.  That alone is $8400 and the gov's max limit is $5860 for everything for a kid that old?  No way.

Oh and I am a CP stepmom.  I just ran the numbers and according to this, PB should be paying $5036 per year, and she actually is ordered to pay $4320 per year.

[joni]

the government figures do not include childcare, the annual amounts are for  housing, food, transportation, clothing, health care, education and a miscellaneous amount.  

[Foster_Mom]

Well here is another interesting way of looking at things for everyone. My DH pays 500 per month. Mind you he has the kids 3 days shy of half time per month and 2 nights. If you look at the cost of in home health care for a sick adult that had a RN you would get a lesser figure for 2 nights and 3 days of HEALTH CARE 24 hours than what he is paying in child support. Also She does not work and lives in a 200 thousand dollar home on a golf course with a membership to that golf course and we live in a 60 thousand dollar home with both parents working full time. We also have 4 other children in our home and the state helps us with 3 of the children. Now who do you think has the better end of the deal? Is it about the money or is it jst about the preciouse time she spends with the children? O I should probably add that she goes golfing 4 times a week and leaves the children home alone with thier two new siblings of 2 and 4 years of age. I dont understand why the courts continue to let this kind of stuff happen.

[slg]

So how does this get fixed?  My husband has the same problem.  He can't even live on his own without my income, because she gets 1/3 of his income.  We live paycheck to paycheck, while she has all new carpeting, satellite, roof, siding, furniture, big screen tv. She also makes more money than him.

Funny thing is, the kids are only allowed one shower per week, because she tells them it costs too much in water for them to bathe more.

I just don't understand.

[joni]

and the sad thing is a judge would tell you that your DH's first obligation is to his first family and he should cut back on HIS standard of living to make ends meet.

and the custodial parent doesn't have to justify a thing on how they spend the child support....

[stepmom70]

Hi everyone!  This is my first post on this board, but I can tell through reading that this place is filled with people just like my husband and myself!!  FINALLY...people who understand where we're coming from!!  I'll apologize for the length of this, but there's a lot of details to consider.
My husband married his ex in 2000.  She had a daughter from a previous relationship when she was 17 and never received a dime of support from the birth father.  Because my husband is a big mush, after they married he agreed to her suggestion that he adopt her daughter (she used the excuse that she wanted her to have the same last name, but she could have just had her name changed - my guess is that she wanted to make sure he would be FINANCIALLY responsible for her daughter as well)  She became pregnant again with his son immediately after they got married.  Less than a year after that, she started having sex with some contractor they hired to do work on their house.  My husband knew nothing about this, as he was working 80 hours a week (at her insistance) so she could stay home with the kids (this was her excuse)  After about a year of this, she just tells him one day that she's leaving him and moving in with the contractor and is taking the kids with her.  Her own parents wouldn't even speak to her for months after this, they were so ashamed of her behavior.  Before the divorce was even final, she practically bragged to everyone that her and the contractor were "buying property to build a new house on the water".  As a reward for his kindness towards her and her daughter, my husband is now paying over $1300/month in basic child support plus an additional $150/week in childcare because in her words "i stayed home with these kids for three years and now it's my time".  They built a big, beautiful $500K house on the water like they said they were going to, where she lives with the kids and the contractor and his son and to add insult to injury....my husband's CS payment subsidizes this house for ALL of them.  My husband's kids call the new guy "Dad", he has all the benefits of being their father because they live with him, yet he has no responsibility, financial or otherwise, for them whatsoever.  Meanwhile, we are barely surviving paycheck to paycheck....without my salary, my husband would have a whopping $300/month left over for housing for himself after he gives her her weekly "paycheck".  In addition to the $450/week she gets for CS and childcare, my husband gets an additional $82/week deducted from his paycheck for health insurance for the kids giving a grand total of $532/week!!!!!!!  We already spoke to a lawyer and he said that given the circumstances, any judge would see this as ridiculous and that she is obviously trying to have everyone else be financially responsible for her children except herself!!  He also said that although CS used to be a black and white area, the courts are now beginning to consider the father's rights and no matter what anyone may say, they DO take into consideration the new lifestyle of the CP, and also the income of his/her new spouse or significant other when reviewing this extreme upgrade in lifestyle.  Basically, she has no right to live the high-life off her ex-husband's nickel.  Oh, I should also add that she has a history of violent behavior when she doesn't get her way (she was physically abusive towards my husband throughout their relationship) and she also hits the kids on a regular basis.  She even said to me herself "some people may consider this child abuse, but I don't give a s**t...my kids listen to me and they do what I tell them."  Sounds like a real gem, doesn't she?  My husband's problem is that he is good natured - almost TOO good natured, and she saw that from the beginning and used him until she didn't have any use for him anymore, moved on to the next guy, but still made sure my husband had to pay.  
Anyway....I just wanted to share my story because there seem to be a lot of us out there who are getting raked over the coals financially by a greedy ex who wants all the benefits of being a parent but none of the financial responsibility.  We're not giving up on this....she may think that because my husband is a softy, she'll keep getting whatever she wants from him, but she'll soon know that his marrying me is going to be the worst thing that ever happened to her because I AM NOT A PUSHOVER, and we are going to fight this until someone listens to what we have to say!!  
Thank you all for listening!!