Affording child support is a key factor in divorcing with children. In many cases, the parent with whom the children reside a majority of the time may receive child support from the other parent. This can even be the case when the parents share equal time with their children. Many factors go into the calculation of child support, but one consistent policy is that that neither parent should have to bear the financial burden of raising the children alone.

Between education, hobbies, food, clothing, medical care and more, it can cost a lot to care for a child. This number increases with each additional child. Angling to reduce what you owe in child support may make affording child support easier. Still, it may not be in the best interest of your children.

Remember the Purpose of Child Support

It can be tempting to penny-pinch on child support. You may want to avoid giving your spouse any more than you must. You may feel like you should be able to control what they spend it on, even though this is not what the law provides.

In a collaborative divorce, you and your spouse will work together to iron out the terms of your divorce, which includes how you will afford child support. You’ll go over the details in a more relaxed environment than a court room. This will make it easier to keep the focus on your children and their needs. You’ll be able to make decisions based on care and love for your children instead of spite and anger with an unnecessary focus on money.

Affording Child Support & Parenting Time

Often, the parent with a majority of parenting time receives the child support payments. This is because they will be paying most of the children’s day-to-day expenses. If you are paying child support in this type of setup, it can be easy to forget where your child support money is going. When you start going down this line of thinking, remind yourself what the money is for. Always keep your children’s interests at heart.

Child support can get a bit complicated when the two of you share parenting time evenly 50%/50%. Even in equally shared parenting arrangements, one parent may still have to pay child support. This is often the case if one parent earns significantly more money than the other.

The reason for this is that vastly different incomes between parents can be disruptive for children as they share time between two separate households. For example, one parent might be able to afford lavish vacations. On the other hand, the other parent might barely be able to pay for basic necessities. In this scenario, child support can help the children to have some consistency in having their personal needs met in both homes.

Get Started with Collaborative Divorce

The collaborative divorce process lets you and your spouse come up with a custom solution for child support. Get in touch with the professionals at Best Legal Choices today to learn more about collaboration.  Collaboration is far less emotionally charged, and usually far less expensive than conventional litigation.