Question on extra expenses for the kids

North Carolina Divorce Law Divorce and Separation Answers
1

I posted this also in the Attorney Will Respond forum. I don’t know if this post should be there or in this forum, so I’m posting here too. Please feel free to remove one of the posts if needed. Thank you!

Here’s a quick background:

My soon to be ex husband and I have been separated for over a year. We’ll be filing sometime within a month or two.

He makes about 79k per year, and I make 41,600 per year. He gives me $150 every other week. He pays for our 2 children’s med insurance. The monthly child support is not an issue and it’s not through the court, just something we agreed on together. Things are pretty civil between us. We share custody of the children, both of them spend time at my place and his place evenly.

Here is my question. If there are miscellaneous expenses for the kids, for example, car insurance, should we split it 50/50?. Our 17 yr old will be getting her driver’s license soon and we’ll be helping her with insurance until she gets a job. Should I pay 50 percent for my share? Or should I pay less because I make less money?

Other misc expenses that come up here and there like maybe a uniform for sports. Should I pay half? Or should I pay less because I make less money?

I brought this up to my ex the other day and he wasn’t very happy. He said that since he already pays me child support, other expenses should be 50/50 between us. I told him that I would look into it and that maybe he’s right and I’m wrong. I brought it up because I wanted to see how he felt about it. Well he doesn’t think it’s fair to him. So I told him that I would look into it and we can discuss it further. And like I said, I might be wrong in thinking that I should pay less because I make less money. If I’m wrong then so be it.

So should I pay half of everything on other expenses for the kids?

Thanks in advance!

2

Officially, and this is probably not what you want to hear, but the extra stuff should be split evenly. Unless I’m mistaken, since he pays you child support and the amount has been agreed on and has been being paid, the court would not force him to pay anything for the extra stuff. Things like sports uniforms or field trips would be paid by the custodial parent, normally the parent who had child support paid to them.
Since you have shared custody, you can pay for the children while they are with you and he can pay while they are with him. It would be a good idea to decide on large dollar amounts such as car insurance ahead of time. For example, if they need shoes and are at your house, buy them shoes. If they are with their father and need a sports uniform, he should give them money for that.
Car and health insurance can be divided…one of you pay for one, the other pay for the other. Shared custody is shared finacial responsibility. Child support is supposed to be the “difference” in your salary is and his salary so that the children are taken care of. $300 a month seems like a reasonable amount but if you agreed to it and now believe that he should pay more because he makes more money, then you could ask for more child support. Run the child support calculator and see what he would be paying with shared custody and your salaries. All he can do is refuse to pay more and then you would need to decide if this is the battle you want to fight…
Keep in mind, if you decide to ask for more money for child support and he does not agree, it would have to go to court to be decided. They will use the calculator to determine the amount, but the extra stuff would not be in question anymore. It would be your responsibility because you are paid the support.