Snowflake or budget infrequent CSEA $...

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-22-2004
Snowflake or budget infrequent CSEA $...
2
Wed, 07-15-2009 - 12:03pm

Hi everyone. Hope you're having a good day.

I'm still trying to enter and tweak a zero balance spreadsheet plan and I've run into a snag. Sometimes, not often, and not on a schedule, but sometimes my ex will make a child support payment. I think it has to do with making sure that right before they sue him he puts some money in the account to save himself. Anyway, I am supposed to be responsible for 58% of my DS 12's calculated costs (Oh, if the state counted how much it actually costs to raise kids LOL) and I end up paying my ex's 42% much of the time. Sooo, often if a payment comes in I've used it to take the kids to dinner or a movie or something that is a treat for him. I'm thinking that I could start snowflaking those but I wasn't sure if I should send it to an efund instead.

WWYD? I don't want to keep using it all for little splurges/entertainment because I've realized in doing the spreadsheet that essentially I'm paying a $400.00 a month bill for my ex and then when he does shoot a tiny bit of it back my way I spend it instead of putting it back to replace my 'income' that I spent to pay his debt.

Hope that makes sense. Thanks for any input.

Lissa - (who's realizing that creating a spending plan is very hard if you're used to just living paycheck to paycheck and bill to bill)

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-28-2008
Wed, 07-15-2009 - 12:25pm

Since your ex is unreliable on paying cs I would consider anything he pays as "bonus" money and would probably split it up as to what I used it for.

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-04-2008
Wed, 07-15-2009 - 2:14pm

The emergency fund has been the key tactic for my road to debt reduction as it has prevented me from every using a CC, and if you don't carry them, and don't use them, it gets ingrained that you don't need to.


Some financial folks say put $1,000 in a baby emergency fund first, before paying any more on the CC's, then start paying down the CCs.