I've been trying to work out how anyone can seriously believe that it costs $410 a week to keep a 14 year old boy with limited extra curricular interests and no ongoing medical treatment yet that's the figure my ex and her partner are using and the one that CSA apparently use.
Apart from the obvious of food clothing etc which I'll address in a moment there two figures mentioned by my ex and her husband to justify this.
An extra $35 a week in rent after moving to a larger home
Adding our son to their health cover, those with a few minutes on their hands may care to hit iSelect and get a couple of quotes, one for couples health insurance and one for family cover. For those who could not be bothered all the policies I saw listed were exactly the same price for both.
My estimates on weekly costs (not quite what I did as I kept a phone plan for him, tried to make pocket money earned, grew some food, he avoided haircuts and I was fortunate that a friend with an older boy gave a lot of good quality casual clothes). The figures are approximate, no doubt they can be run up but savings can also be found with some care.
$60 food
$5 clothes
$5 grooming
$15 pocket money
$10 extra power & cleaning products
$3 X-Box online
$15 school costs (depends on how uniforms & books are treated)
$10 extra fuel for run around (rides a bike to school). Not much extra curricular
$15 out of pocket medical
$15 holidays
$5 gifts
$5 wear and tear (things that wear out and may need replacing)
Eg around $163 a week. My gut feel had been around $150 but pocket money was not often earned.
Sometimes there may be extras but they are not guaranteed and sometimes there will be savings.
In my view the optional extras should be subject to negotiation, not have the money just taken and used by the other parent without review.
I'm also struggling with the type of ethics that allow for someone who didn't contribute to any of the basic costs while my son was living with me to use CSA in such a brutal manner. The hardship this is causing me has been casually dismissed with a call that we all should get on with it by my ex's partner, meanwhile I'm searching around trying to work out what costs I can cut and still keep some kind of life. I need to get over that and accept that I'd badly misjudged my ex's partner.
I'll probably need to get rid of my aquarium, it uses power. I won't be able to keep using a great personal trainer I've been working with for a while. Discretionary spending on hobbies is almost gone. I'm pondering if it's worth the entry fee and fuel to do another triathlon in April whereas before this started those were not a stretch, now it's two or three weeks of discretionary spending. I'm doing a more difficult drive to get home from work as the Clem 7 is more than I can afford. Tried the train again and the few dollars a week that might save don't come close to the lack of comfort and extra time taken but that may change when I don't have free parking.
I'm trying to work my way to a focus on more positive things, accepting that this is really being done and nothing much I can do can change it. My PT has suggested that I do the Circle of Influence exercise which makes sense, there are some things I can control and I need to work with those.
The CSA system badly needs some kind of independent fairness review process, what they do now is a massive abuse.
Tuesday, 20 March 2012
Sunday, 11 March 2012
Some initial thoughts
I've recently needed to have dealings with CSA again after some years of being the prime carer and avoiding their involvement. The assessed support amount is going to cause me considerable financial hardship and is more than double what I believe it was actually costing to meet real and healthy costs for maintaining my son other than where there were significant extra expenses (out of hours care when he was younger).
A number of points have stuck in my mind since the call from CSA
- There was no mention of any support services, financial or personal. I was called at work and left absolutely gutted by an assessment that is going to leave me financially stretched for years to come seeming with no concern for my well being at all.
- There are no fairness or context criteria to the assessment, a formula is applied regardless of the relative impacts of the history of sharing of costs, financial commitments and impacts of the decision.
- Whilst the other parent's partner should not be responsible for the costs of raising my child I should not be responsible for ongoing career choices by someone I'm no longer in a relationship with. I'm having to pay the vast majority of the assessed costs because of work choices by my ex which I've had no say in and which are impacted by my ex's partners income and lifestyle choices.
- There does not appear to be any independent review process, no one to turn to and have the assessment reviewed other than CSA itself unless I find evidence that they have acted illegally and could afford a legal challenge. having CSA review their own decision looks like a source of additional pain with little likely hood of any improvement.
- There does not seem to be viable way's that I can make changes to improve my situation, finding way's to increase my income would increase my tax and CSA obligations meaning that I'd have to make a lot extra to get a little back. Extra income could also increase my "capacity to earn" meaning an increased CSA obligation regardless of an ongoing capacity to continue to earn at that rate, not sure of all the rules around that. I'm still pondering options there and I'll have to spend some more time on what options I have to make more income and the trade off in work life balance.
- The government does not involve itself with other families and demand that they spend a certain proportion of their weekly income on raising a child, the measures are on a level of care not expenditure. I can't see any way that it can be good for a child without special needs or significant extra curricular activities
to have as much spent on them as the formula's suggest. http://www.csa.gov.au/child_support_formula/child_costs_table_2012.php
I've been more than happy to pay real costs associated with raising my son but I object strongly to the amount's CSA chooses to nominate and the utter lack of balance in the way they deal with such decisions.
There should be fairness criteria in the process which take into account context and leave both parents responsible for their choices, not a system which seems focussed on maximising the transfer of money between parents.
A number of points have stuck in my mind since the call from CSA
- There was no mention of any support services, financial or personal. I was called at work and left absolutely gutted by an assessment that is going to leave me financially stretched for years to come seeming with no concern for my well being at all.
- There are no fairness or context criteria to the assessment, a formula is applied regardless of the relative impacts of the history of sharing of costs, financial commitments and impacts of the decision.
- Whilst the other parent's partner should not be responsible for the costs of raising my child I should not be responsible for ongoing career choices by someone I'm no longer in a relationship with. I'm having to pay the vast majority of the assessed costs because of work choices by my ex which I've had no say in and which are impacted by my ex's partners income and lifestyle choices.
- There does not appear to be any independent review process, no one to turn to and have the assessment reviewed other than CSA itself unless I find evidence that they have acted illegally and could afford a legal challenge. having CSA review their own decision looks like a source of additional pain with little likely hood of any improvement.
- There does not seem to be viable way's that I can make changes to improve my situation, finding way's to increase my income would increase my tax and CSA obligations meaning that I'd have to make a lot extra to get a little back. Extra income could also increase my "capacity to earn" meaning an increased CSA obligation regardless of an ongoing capacity to continue to earn at that rate, not sure of all the rules around that. I'm still pondering options there and I'll have to spend some more time on what options I have to make more income and the trade off in work life balance.
- The government does not involve itself with other families and demand that they spend a certain proportion of their weekly income on raising a child, the measures are on a level of care not expenditure. I can't see any way that it can be good for a child without special needs or significant extra curricular activities
to have as much spent on them as the formula's suggest. http://www.csa.gov.au/child_support_formula/child_costs_table_2012.php
I've been more than happy to pay real costs associated with raising my son but I object strongly to the amount's CSA chooses to nominate and the utter lack of balance in the way they deal with such decisions.
There should be fairness criteria in the process which take into account context and leave both parents responsible for their choices, not a system which seems focussed on maximising the transfer of money between parents.
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