As we all know, children are very expensive. When parents live together and share finances, they seamlessly share those expenses together. Usually they do this without even giving it a second thought. Sadly, this is not the case when parents separate.
People typically think of expenses for their children as being the extra things like extracurricular activities, clothes/shoes, medical expenses, childcare, toys, and school supplies. Some things that people typically overlook when they think of expenses related to their children are things such as higher rent/mortgage because they need a larger residence, higher utility bills because more people are using them and they have a larger residence, additional expenses for food and non-food items (detergent, toiletries, bedding, children’s furniture). These overlooked items can be extremely costly.
Post separation, one parent will commonly argue that each parent should only pay the expenses for the children while the children are in their care, and therefore, they should not have to pay any child support to the other parent. Many years ago, custody arrangements were more commonly ordered with one person having the children for the majority of the time, and the other parent having the children every other weekend. In this scenario you can see how one of the parents will be paying significantly more of the overlooked expenses for the children. This will happen even if the parents agree to jointly pay most all of the expected expenses (extracurricular activities, clothes/shoes, medical expenses, childcare, school supplies). Therefore, child support guidelines were created to ensure that the children’s financial needs were provided for while with each parent.
In more recent years, the custody orders have changed, and it is very common now for both parents to spend equal amounts of time with their children. The days of every other weekend, are for the most part, gone. This change resulted in both parents incurring these overlooked expenses for the children and gave more weight to the argument from the parent paying child support that “we should both just pay our own expenses and not pay child support.” Therefore, the law was changed to address this concern. The law allows for a reduction in child support for situations when each parent shares a substantial amount of time with the children. The key amount of time for a reduction is for the paying parent to have at least 20% (at least 73) of the overnights with the children in order to receive a reduction in child support. And the amount of the reduction increases the more overnights the paying parent has with the children. This enables both parents to have sufficient funds to pay these overlooked expenses, and not put the full financial burden on one of the parents.
Should you want to either have your current child support amount recalculated, or determine what your child support amount would be if you are contemplating separation or divorce, we can help. Give us a call to schedule your in-person or virtual appointment to discuss it.
