Need opinions on fair child support
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| Mon, 02-28-2005 - 4:34pm |
I would like some opinions here. I know we aren't all lawyers and I wouldn't know what I would get from a judge unless we actually went to court, but... My husband and I are getting a very agreed upon divorce. It is truly best for both of us. We are trying to be as friendly as possible about it, and we would like to try to decide on everything ourselves. I have a question about child support. Do you think this is fair? This is the first time I have had to do this. Here are the circumstances:
Divorcing with 5 mo old child
First marriage for both
No other children on either side
He is a Physician Asst and makes approx $5500/mo
I am a secretary and I make approx $1423/mo
He will be paying her health insurance, approx $120/mo
Her child care costs are $420/mo
We have tentatively settled on $1000/mo to be paid to me for child support.
Do you think this is fair, or am I going to regret this? Experienced single moms, please help me out.

What I did was look at mine and my ex-h's budgets and see that we could both afford to live and maintain a solid place to have dd when she was with each of us after considering the child support amount.
If you plug $1,000 into your budget how does it look? Can you afford to live on that plus your salary? Remember, that is $12,000 per year you will not pay taxes on. He has to pay taxes on it, so he's really paying more than $12,000. Does he have a lot of student loans or his he taking on a larger share of marital debt, and who is keeping most of the marital assets? When it's all said and done, will your standard of living be in the same relm as his? If he's living in a $500,000 home and your living in a one bedroom apartment, then it might not be fair. If you are both able to afford a modest home with a decent standard of living, that would seem fair. Although, cs is not meant to be fair. There are more instances when it's not fair (to one side or the other) that it being fair. To make it fair, they would evaluate it on a case by case basis, not use a standard formula for all.
I really haven't heard of many cases where child support is over $1,000 for one child, but it all depends on what your state's laws are and in most cases, it takes a computer to calculate the proper amount. That doesn't mean you have to agree on that amount, but it would be good to know what the amount would be under state law, and you don't have to go before a judge to find that out. Any attorney can compute it for you. I would check with an online calculator, but they are not always accurate.
It is great that you are agreeing on everything yourself, but that does not mean you avoid attorney's all together. My ex and I had a very amicable divorce and we did agree on everything on our own, but then we also had attorney's to make sure we did what we needed to do under our state laws. We did this to protect ourselves and our dd. I would never divorce with a child and no attorney's. There is too much at stake. At a minimum, you can pay an attorney a few hundred after it's all written up just to review the document on your behalf, and tell you if you've missed anything really big. Your STBX should do the same. It's really just a smart thing to do no matter what your situation. If you don't want to tell him, just take your document to an attorney and get it reviewed and don't mention it to your STBX.
Edited 2/28/2005 5:59 pm ET ET by firstamendment
good luck to you!
more info for you at: http://www.osca.state.mo.us/sup/index.nsf/
d45a7635d4bfdb8f8625662000632638/
623e7272c71651cf862565ed00483442?OpenDocument
(remove my hard returns and paste into your web address box)
Just a note... our state calculator won't let you go over a certain dollar amount in what either parent makes or what the CS is. It gives you a message saying that this is a case that must be decided in court by a judge. So, if Donald Trump lived in my state and had a child with Ivana, the courts would have to decide on the CS if they didn't agree to something between themselves.
In this case, I think that firstamendament is right in her comments on deciding if it's fair or not.
Steph