Raising children is expensive. Raising them across two households adds another layer of complexity. A little financial planning can prevent those expenses from becoming ongoing co-parenting conflicts.
1. Recognize That Raising a Child Keeps You Financially Connected
Many couples split up over financial conflicts. So you may not love reading this, but the fact is, while divorce or separation may end your financial partnership as a couple, it doesn’t end the financial connection created by raising a child together.
While your parenting agreement and child support orders may cover some of these financial burdens, few comprehensively capture everything. That is what I seek to help you with here in #2 through #10.
2. Know What Child Support Covers, and What It Doesn't
If you are awarded or ordered to pay child support, be sure you understand what it pays for and what it doesn’t. Then you can come up with a plan for how you and your child’s other parent will split the burden of covering the expenses child support leaves out.
What Child Support is intended to cover varies widely across geographies. So it is important that you know what is in your Divorce Decree and Parenting Agreement. Typically, child support covers a child’s basic needs including food, shelter, and clothing.
From there, you should find out which of the following expenses are not covered by child support in your particular situation or elsewhere in your Parenting Agreement:
Education – Tuition for private schools, tutoring, school supplies, textbooks or workbooks, lab fees, college funds, fundraising obligations, technology used in schools that parents are expected to provide depending on your school district (computers, software, internet access, or handheld devices)
Healthcare and Medical Expenses – Medical, dental, and vision insurance premiums, deductibles, co-pays, out-of-pocket expenses including over-the-counter healthcare items. Plus orthodontics, elective procedures, alternative therapies, specialized treatments, and medical devices not covered by insurance.
Childcare – daycare, babysitters, after-school programs, and summer camps
Extracurricular Activities – sports program fees, training, uniforms, and other expenses such as travel for travel team participation; music lessons, and instruments; dance or theater program fees, costumes, and lessons; art classes and supplies; youth organization club fees and expenses; camps associated with any of these; other hobbies
Transportation – bus fare and fuel costs to and from school and extracurricular activities; airfare or other transportation costs for long-distance parenting arrangements
Special needs – Does your child need special medical equipment, professional care, or adaptive design in each parent’s home.
3. Spell Out Which Child-Related Expenses Will Be Shared
To avoid you and your co-parent repeatedly fighting about who pays for what, take some time to address predictable expenses like those listed in #2 above. Has this detail been captured in your parenting agreement?
If you are already divorced and these items were left out of your parenting agreement or you were never married, you can propose a plan now to cover these expenses cooperatively with your co-parent going forward. Document what you have agreed to in writing and make sure you both have a copy for reference. I also like the idea of each parent signing it. This doesn’t make it legally binding. But it does go a long way to psychologically commit both parties to the agreement.
If you want to make sure the agreement is legally binding and enforceable, work with a Family Mediator or Co-parenting Coach to capture the details. Then engage a legal professional to have it filed with your local court. Some local courts offer free assistance with this type of thing to those who qualify. So check before hiring an attorney.
4. Establish How Shared Expenses Will Be Divided
Don't assume "shared parenting" necessarily means every expense must be split 50/50. Each parent’s financial circumstances may be different. What matters is having a clear arrangement rather than renegotiating every bill. Will you split expenses not covered by child support evenly or according to your income ratios?
Again this can be informally documented if there are no trust concerns. If there are, have them formally incorporated into your parenting agreement as described in #3.
5. Agree Before Committing the Other Parent's Money
One thing I’ve witnessed parents doing over the years is committing to costly expenses for a child which they expect their co-parent to contribute to without discussing it with them first. Whether it’s travel sports team costs, extravagant gifts, or hobbies that require ongoing funding, neither parent should unilaterally incur an optional expense and expect reimbursement.
Think of it this way. Would you want someone to spend your money without your consent? Remember to treat your co-parent as you would wish to be treated. Modeling the behavior you want to receive from them is the best way to influence how your co-parent treats you.
6. Distinguish Between Approval and Notification
To reduce conflict, for expenses that fall outside of child support payments, establish which of these require advanced discussion and which can be handled by simply notifying the other parent of the expense. My son’s father and I agreed to a particular dollar threshold above which we would discuss the expense in advance. Anything below that amount, we simply notified the other parent of via our shared spreadsheet.
7. Create a Simple, Documented Reimbursement System
Speaking of shared spreadsheets, you have many options available in today’s digital world for facilitating shared expense documentation and reimbursement. Google, Apple, Microsoft, and many other smaller players offer free and/or subscription-based shared spreadsheets that are easy to use and provide parents with visibility into expense activity as it is documented. Pair one of these with Venmo, Zelle, or another personal payment exchange method to facilitate payments between parents.
If you use a co-parenting app, check to see if it has expense handling capabilities. Many do and can make recordkeeping and reimbursement much easier between parents, especially for those that are prone to conflict.
Whatever system you set up, make sure you can record expenses including the description of the expense and the total spent, capture receipts, designate amounts owed to each other, and facilitate payments between you two.
Finally, be sure you and your co-parent have agreement on the expected timeframe for reimbursements. This can be as short or long as the two of you can mutually commit to. Consider the frequency of income payments each parent receives to establish logical reimbursement terms.
8. Other Large AND Predictable Expenses
Besides the expenses previously covered, some others you can anticipate over the course of your son or daughter’s childhood include school trips, cars, prom, graduation, child party hosting, and college. Even being asked to provide the food for an extracurricular team or group can become a financial burden for parents on a tight budget.
To avoid events like these becoming a financial ambush on either parent, communication with your co-parent and your child’s extracurricular activity leaders is key.
Leaders of many youth activities are volunteers and as such may not think to articulate up front a detailed accounting of all anticipated expenses your child will incur as a result of their participation. To ensure you have the information need to plan accordingly, review all materials distributed by the activity leader and organization.
Also, ask the activity leader or organizer if there are any other expenses beyond the information disclosed in the standard literature that you should be prepared to fund. Then, to avoid arguments, share what you learn with our co-parent.
9. Keep Money Conflicts Between the Adults
Money disagreements are between you and your co-parent. Not your child! Don’t tell your child they can have something you can only afford with your co-parent’s help before you have their agreement to contribute. Doing so puts your co-parent in the position of either paying for something they never agreed to or becoming the parent who has to say no.
Likewise, don’t involve your child in disagreements about who owes what or tell them, “Your dad won’t pay for it” or “Your mom owes me money.” Children shouldn’t be made to feel responsible for adult financial disputes or pressured to take sides.
Financial obligations also shouldn’t become leverage in other co-parenting conflicts. If your co-parent is withholding parenting time, for example, deciding to withhold child support or other agreed financial assistance is not the appropriate remedy. Address each problem through the process available to resolve it rather than creating your own system of retaliation.
The same principle works in reverse too. Financial disagreements should never be used as justification for interfering with a child’s relationship with the other parent. Keeping these issues separate helps prevent one disagreement from escalating into an entirely new battle, with your child caught in the middle.
10. Build a Financial System That Doesn't Depend on Getting Along
A good financial arrangement shouldn't require parents to be friends or even particularly cooperative.
Clear expectations, advanced agreements, documentation, deadlines and predictable processes reduce the number of things parents have left to fight about. It will also go a long way to keep your child out of the middle of adult concerns and conflicts.
Teresa Luse is a Co-parenting Coach, Family Mediator, and author of Combative to Collaborative: The Co-parenting Code. Learn more at TeresaLuse.com.