Oh, the dreaded topic of a parent paying the other to help afford the bills of raising a child. I know, there are so many added costs from food and clothes, to school supplies and learning games. Shoes alone can cost $100 a month for growing boys. The thing is, most of the time, parents don’t want to pay child support. And after a bad breakup, they may think the other parent is trying t gouge them their livelihood. Well, there are laws in place to help keep things in place without making it personal. In addition, I recommend setting up payments through the government so that you NEVER have to get involved after things are settled.
General guidance from my personal experience
Don’t quibble over 100 dollars here and there. It can add up to more in lawyer bills. Also, I learned that the parent still may not pay and there’s not much you can do about it. They can garnish wages but if the other parent is self-employed, this might not be possible.
In addition to the basic support award, the child support order must include medical support, which means health insurance and payments for any out-of-pocket medical expenses for the child.
NYC
Use this support calculator to get a better sense of how you might set a budget.
NYC provides handbooks for custodial parents and non-custodial parents to help navigate the child support system — separate from the custody case. While I prefer to focus on scheduling and custody arrangements, this information might be useful for those who are going through the courts and need to know the differences between the two.
In addition, NYC has a page, maintenance and child support tools, that provides documents you’d want to fill out for the courts to establish child support. There’s a lot of legal jargon, so please reach out to help@coparenting.app if you need support.
California
While searching, I found a support calculator on this site lawyer’s site and while I can’t attest to this particular lawyer, I do like that she has a website page on DIY divorce.