Back to school expenses

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-30-2004
Back to school expenses
15
Sun, 08-28-2005 - 6:58pm
I'm really discouraged with back to school shopping. I had $253 worth of clothes and shoes I bought at Wal-Mart and I bought my daughter a new pair of "trendy" shoes at the mall and it's still not enough. I worked last saturday an extra 8 hour shift and worked on call from 7pm-1am to help pay for all this stuff. I have no clue what my ex has bought for them. My daughter still needs three ring binders and they needs pencils and pens and book covers. Arrrrrrrrr. I don't dare ask what he's gotten them for fear of getting my head bit off.

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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-11-2004
Mon, 08-29-2005 - 8:53pm
Melanie, I know how you feel. I live month to month too. I did get fulltime employment though so I do have health insurance luckily. I hope you get that teaching certificate and life gives you all you deserve and need. Right now I rely on God for my needs and he has yet to let me down. It is so hard to watch my ex go about his life making 4 times what I do. Never having to pinch pennies. It makes me very bitter. I am sorry life has handed you such a raw deal and I wish you the best for your future. Hugs, Brenda

Hugs, Brenda 

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-08-2004
Mon, 08-29-2005 - 8:53pm

Melanie, I totally understand. If I didn't have a child, I DEFNITELY wouldn't be living in this WAY overpriced neigborhood, so yes, I am going to use some of my child support to pay for a portion of the rent, because my rent would be probably half of what it is if I lived in a different area. My STBX and I decided it was very important for my DS to not have to change schools again, so here I am.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-06-2005
Tue, 08-30-2005 - 8:52am

Child support is there to pay a portion of ALL the child's living expenses. ALL includes rent, mortgage, food, electric etc.... then there is the basic

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
Wed, 08-31-2005 - 10:37am

Of course, we are all going to budget money differently. I agree with some of you and not with others, and it doesn't have a thing to do with divorce...we would have similar differences in habits/patterns/issues with money even if we were all rich and married.

I don't spend jack on my kids stuff for back to school. We clean out the supplies from last year and use what we have, replacing only what is needed as needed. I spent about 5$ on school supplies this year. I don't need to buy a winter coat in August...I buy a winter coat when the last one is outgrown, and if that happens in January, so be it. IF there are no good sales at that time and i get the coat at the Salvation ARmy, that is fine too.

I do get a little flack from my older dd who sees her friends doing a major back to school shop. She'll get over it! She has a ton of nice clothes and boxes of clean hand me downs for the future. That is how I grew up, but with one major difference. My mom always griped about what we couldn't afford, told me things I wanted to buy were crap, and how people who spent a lot on such things had bad judgement. I don't place blame. I say "I can see why you love that skirt! I will keep checking the store to see if it goes on sale". And 'Every family has to make their own choices'.

My glass is half full and it's gonna stay that way if it kills me!

IMHO if I make our divorce be all about money, it will send the wrong message to the kids. Marriage is about compromise, and if I fail to do that AFTER the divorce, what have I gained?

Susie

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-23-2004
Wed, 08-31-2005 - 1:20pm

I totally agree with you Susie!! Since all of us view money/budgeting differently, all of us are going to view child support differently. I tend to view child support as "extra" income since I really don't need it for living expenses or expenses for my son. I'm sure I would view it differently if didn't make much money on my own. And I'm sorry, I wasn't trying to offend anyone with my post, just wanted to chime in with my opinion.

I also decided that I didn't want everything in my life to be somehow associated with "divorce." It's much easier for me to know that it's up to me to pay for things than to fight, argue, and worry about getting money from my ex. The less I have to deal with him the better!! I guess I also know that I can't necessarily depend on my ex to pay child support or contribute financially. Since we are divorced I don't want to have to depend on him in anyway anymore, including financially.

Someone said it is impossible to support a child and household on one income in today's world. That's not necessarily true. My ex husband was so bad with money that I was actually better off financially when we divorced. My son I lived in the same house with the same lifestyle we had when my ex and I were still married. I did have to do a little extra budgeting to determine what was a necessity and what wasn't, but we were fine. My ex rarely pays any child support - when he does it goes into a college savings account for my son.

I do the same thing with clothes, sales, etc that you do. I don't think I've ever bought clothes for my son that were full price, yet he's always dressed to the nines because I get everything at the "popular" stores when it's on sale. This summer I didn't buy my son any new clothes at all, he still fit into everything from last summer. I'm careful when I launder everything so you couldn't tell he was wearing things from last summer. I did the same thing when my ex and I were still married though.

I'm not saying that everyone does this, but I have noticed that some of my divorced friends started spending MORE money on their kids when they got divorced. Prior to their divorce they budgeted and sale shopped. When they got divorced they started spending tons of money on full price stuff and non-essentials, then demanded that their ex's cough up more money. If their ex's refused, they then accused them of not caring about the kids, etc., etc. In my mind I was thinking "but you never spent money that way before, you used to hit the sales rack with me!!"

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