Top tips to deal with children’s expenses

Stress and emotional pain of a separation can be exacerbated by worrying over expenses for your children.  Let yourself focus on the important things in life, and work on discovering strategies that will help you to find workable solutions to your financial stress.  Here are some tips on how to deal with your kids expenses when you’re separated.

Create a Budget

It is essential to allocate time to talk to the other parent about your child’s expenses.  From the beginning of the separation, there needs to be a clear allocation of costs and contributions.  This will help to maintain a stable relationship between the two of you for the benefit of your children.  Parenting while separated is difficult, but you can make the process a lot easier if you both know which expenses you are each expected to look after.

Medical Bills

This can be a difficult topic, as the parent that has the children the most often feels obliged to pay for day to day medical bills. While this might be ok for the majority of small bills, they may not be able to extend their budget to accommodate the significant medical expenses that can be incurred through injury or serious sickness.  One option that seems to work well is that all expenses over a predetermined amount are split between both parents.

For example, anything under $50 might be covered by whichever parent has custody of the child at the time, while everything over this amount is a shared expense.  Keeping all the receipts and having a financial meeting every few months can ensure that this arrangement continues to work efficiently.

Childcare

While splitting the expense of medical bills can work quite well, sharing the cost of childcare can be slightly more problematic.  If both parents are paying equally, it can raise issues when the child is looked after by a family member, or maybe has an outing with one of the parents on a designated care day.  One parent can be left feeling cheated, and resentment can build with the sentiment that their payments aren’t being used correctly.

A way around this dilemma is for each parent to pay for the days that they need to have the child in care.  This way, if you choose to have your child looked after by grandparents or have taken a day away from work to spend with the kids, the other parent won’t feel like they are funding your time off.

Don’t let the separation become even more difficult by arguing over finances.  Have a clear plan from the very beginning that is fair, and remember to always make your decision based on what is best for your children.  If you’d like a professional opinion on creating a budget or handling difficult debt issues after a separation, remember to contact a debt specialist.  They can help you to get back on your feet and take control of your financial situation so that your children have a secure and stable future.

Guest Post Written by Emma Jane