Keep Those Receipts! – 6 reasons to track of your child support expenses.

March 20, 2009

Keep Those Receipts! – 6 reasons to track of your child support expenses.

According to sources, keeping track of what you spend on the kids is a pain in the you know where. And yet, just a little bit of time spent keeping some simple records could turn out to be worth a whole lot of $ in child support.  Read on:

There is no way you can predict the future, and that’s not just for yourself. In a divorce situation you have the futures of everyone involved to predict. Yours, the ex’s and the kids. With a good agreement in place many of the most common future variables have been included, but what if you have an agreement that is not so good, or what if you have something change in your life or your kids life that nobody foresaw?

There is only one thing your ex can do for you if the unforeseen happens – SEND MORE MONEY. So, what are your chances of getting? Not so good if you don’t have some records to show.

The solution is to keep track of what your kids cost, even if everything is just going along fine just now. In fact it’s really important to start doing it when things are good, so that if something changes in your expenses, it will be easy to show.

In any case, start now by making notes or keeping receipts on all those life expenses regarding the children. Anything you record now will help later under a wide range of circumstances.

Reason 1: Current child support just isn’t enough
For reasons known only to God and Judges your payment may be too low to begin with. Showing your attorney an empty checkbook at the end of the month may help you make the point with them, but you’ll need more before going to the court. What do the kids really cost? What expenses may have been overlooked in your agreement? Even your representative will need to see what’s happening with your $ to get that big bright idea that will produce a change in your child support.

Reason 2: Ex may get salary cut or lose a job
Your ex is moving on in life and this may mean up or DOWN the income ladder! If down is unfortunately the direction of their income, then they may come back to you for a reduction in their child support payments. Be prepared to show that every penny that has been received was used well and that instead of cutting support they should be pulling up their socks and continuing to pay the same amount regardless.

Reason 3: Keeping the peace
You may be one of the many families of divorce that are on speaking terms and share information about how the kids are doing. Even if the question isn’t asked, share some information about where the child support $ is going. You have lost nothing to provide this information, and a well informed ex is less likely to become a financial grouch if you have been free with your child support expense information. If you keep your child support costs a mystery, then the other party is likely to fill that vacuum with mis-information, doubt and eventually accusation.

Reason 4: Slipping support
We live in challenging times and regardless of the ex’s best intentions they may at some point or another fall behind in child support payments. The best defense is an offense in this case. If you had been sharing information on costs all along, then if payments start to drop behind you will need less pressure to get them caught up. Fundamentally, people do want their kids to thrive and if payments fall behind the only way to feel okay about it is to claim that ‘too much was being paid anyway, they’ll be okay’. Avoid this whole nasty scene by keeping track of child support expenses, sharing the information and making it impossible to jump to any wrong conclusions about how much is really needed and in what way it is being spent.

Reason 5: Unexpected problems or opportunities
Talk about rolling the dice – there is nothing that introduces ‘chance’ into our lives more than having kids! Whew! And occasionally that means unexpected expenses that on one hand could mean a trip to the hospital, or on the other hand an opportunity for them to take a church or school sponsored visit to another country. Good or bad, your agreement may not have made sufficient allowances for the unexpected.  Most often there is no time to ask for and get any support increase in time for an emergency. But if you have been keeping track of the normal expenses and can show that every dime was well spent (and then some) you will then have an easier time making the case that the unexpected expense that came up really, really exceeded the already established child support payments and that an increase is called for.

Reason 6: Child support and cost of living
And last is the one that gets us all in the end (no, not death or taxes): cost of living increases!!! But the figures used by the federal government to calculate cost of living changes may have NOTHING to do with how your cost of living may have changed. If a large part of your child support money goes to food and schooling, then a 15% increase in the cost of the school, plus a 6% increase in cost of food equals a real cost of living increase for you that wildly exceeds the figure handed out by Uncle Sam. By keeping track of your expenses you have the firepower you need to open up a renegotiation with your ex and actually get more $ to cover the actual costs that have increased.

So there you have it, keep records on your child support expenses and have a better chance of controlling your financial future.

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