Do you really split every single agreed upon cost?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:do you pay child support? I mean, it seems weird regardless, but less weird if there's no child support.

This.

CS is supposed to be what pays for those kinds of piddling little things. Splitting every minute cost for the kid is insane. Generally, you're responsible for the expenses the kid endures when they're with you and big ticket items are split.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:do you pay child support? I mean, it seems weird regardless, but less weird if there's no child support.

Why would it seem less weird if there's no child support? If there's no child support that means the two parties either have equal incomes or the party with the greater income has more time with the child and is presumably incurring more costs to support the child.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:do you pay child support? I mean, it seems weird regardless, but less weird if there's no child support.

This.

CS is supposed to be what pays for those kinds of piddling little things. Splitting every minute cost for the kid is insane. Generally, you're responsible for the expenses the kid endures when they're with you and big ticket items are split.

CS is supposed to help with regular expenses, but there are irregular ones that come up like an ER visit or a one time week-long school trip. You can’t always anticipate those when you’re working out a monthly payment. The state calculators don’t have a way to factor in even those that you both agree will occur like braces in three years or college tours in two years. You need to split those (maybe not 50/50, but a split by income is still fair).

The so-called piddling things add up though. Whether it’s a pair of soccer socks or a flash drive, you start to get irritated by being the only parent making sure the child has what is needed.

[Anonymous]

We don’t. Despite making good money (in an above-board, professional, salaried job), my ex never has any money, isn’t organized enough to keep records, and is vindictive enough that I can’t share a credit card with him.

I am honestly shocked when I receive a child support check.

I budget everything on just my income, and when he pays child support, I drop it into savings for big ticket items.

[Anonymous]

Nooe. I pay set the receipts aside and wait in case ex tries to modify support.

[Anonymous]

We split classes/extracurriculars and our agreement is to split medical costs not covered by insurance-but we haven’t had any of those other than an occasional $30 co-pay which neither of us has bothered about (since it tends to roughly balance out definitely ending on who takes them to the doctor). We also split school photo packages (it’s so much cheaper than buying two packages.)

Otherwise we just each pay our own expenses on our own time. I tend to cover more of the random small expenses, and I buy most of their clothes but whatever. I do get child support so I figure it balances out.

Neither of our kids have expensive hobbies-if they eventually pick something up that requires lots of equipment/training I’d probably ask their Dad to contribute.

[Anonymous]

My ex can't even handle paying one lump payment of CS each month so no, this back and forth about who is paying for socks and a movie is very foreign to me. Sounds ridiculous, petty and exhausting.

[Anonymous]

I don't ask for any of the small things unless I'm paying for something as a direct result of X's bad decisions. Or for the 10th time. My money is tight, so I make a judgement call. Generally, i don't bother ask for anything that is like 25 and under.

[Anonymous]

I am so sad reading this. Very sorry for kids with divorced parents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am so sad reading this. Very sorry for kids with divorced parents.

What a helpful, insightful comment.

[Anonymous]

We use to only split the big things until my ex decided that was unfair, so now we track everything and I pay less, because all of the extras that I had always covered are now accounted for.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
DH shrugs it off and just says "her personality is super precise in everything she does, its just her."

I would take your DH's word that it's just her personality and let it go. I have a brother like this, although it's amusing not annoying, since we don't share expenses. If someone asks what time it is, he will say 4:03 when anyone else would say 4:00. When calculating tip at a restaurant, he would come up with precise 20%, excluding tax, when anyone else would round it to next dollar. How long did it take you to drive here? Oh, it took 4 hours 23 minutes. Just his personality. He remembers numbers really well. It's been helpful on occasion but mostly it's just funny. Maybe your DH could come up with an agreement with her that you'll just let de minimus amounts < $20 go, or else you can just learn to live with it and not take it personally.

+1. Also, how does it impact you? I assume your DH handles this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have 50/50, no child support, and make maybe a little less than half what my ex does. I couldn't live like this. We agree who will pay big expenses, but rarely exchange money. There's been once or twice when my ex paid for a bunch of camps and I gave her a check for some of that money. However, I do have friend who keeps a shared spreadsheet with her ex and they venmo back and forth for every expense. If it's going to be that down to the penny, my preference would be shared account where you each deposit a set amount of money each month and have agreed upon expenses for which you draw down.

A friend of mine does the shared account thing and it works really well for them. Set small amount goes in from each of their paychecks but periodically they will both say hey this is getting low, let’s both deposit X amount.

[Anonymous]

None of your business. Why does this bother you?

We do this. We use splitwise, it's an app that makes this easy. No texts. Balances paid at end of each month.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:do you pay child support? I mean, it seems weird regardless, but less weird if there's no child support.

This.

CS is supposed to be what pays for those kinds of piddling little things. Splitting every minute cost for the kid is insane. Generally, you're responsible for the expenses the kid endures when they're with you and big ticket items are split.

CS is supposed to help with regular expenses, but there are irregular ones that come up like an ER visit or a one time week-long school trip. You can’t always anticipate those when you’re working out a monthly payment. The state calculators don’t have a way to factor in even those that you both agree will occur like braces in three years or college tours in two years. You need to split those (maybe not 50/50, but a split by income is still fair).

The so-called piddling things add up though. Whether it’s a pair of soccer socks or a flash drive, you start to get irritated by being the only parent making sure the child has what is needed.

CS orders do include provisions for the paying parent to reimburse the other for irregular expenses, exactly like medical expenses that are not covered by insurance. Braces would fall under "uncovered medical" so would be split proportionate to income (if parents make the same/similar it would be 50/50, otherwise could be 60/40 or whatever), college tours would be more difficult to sort, and probably each parent would cover the colleges they visit with the child. Any time I have to take my kid to the ER my ex gets the receipt for what I paid, and reimburses me based on our child support order.