Divorce and Child Support

Hi;

My ex and I have joint legal and physical custody of our two sons, we have equal parenting time with them (50/50). They spend one week with me and then one week with him year round.

My question is, my ex pays me child support and he was telling me that I am required to pay for all of the school lunches for our son who goes to an elementary school. I was under the impression that child support includes child care (which I am responsible for each month) and medical expenses. But in my view school lunches is not a necessary expense, you can pack your child a lunch from home instead. Is he correct in saying this, am I responsible and required to pay this even if I wish to pack my son a lunch when he is with me?

As it stands now, he makes $10K more then me a year, so our incomes are relatively similar and our parenting time is 50/50. The amount of child support that he pays me now basically only covers half of our child care expenses. Please advise. Thank you for your help.

This one could get tricky, with information I have read, 50/50 split in some cases both parents do  not pay chils support,since the children are split equally in the home life and care.  So with information, I have researched in a lot of cases a split like this there is not even child support being paid.  One question is if you guys get a long well and can discuss the children, tell him you are struggling and that the children need food.

A good way to look at is is vise versa in the split, if you were paying child support instead of him. 

You can also take the time to even step into a lawyers office the first consultation is free.

Thank you for your reply but I am fine with providing for my children, they have food when they are with me. The question was, do I have to pay for all school lunches even when the child is not with me? To me this is not a necessary expense, because you have the choice of packing the child a lunch from home instead of paying for the hot lunches at school. My ex husbands position is that because he pays a very nominal amount of child support, which literally covers half of the child care expense, is that I need to buy all the school lunches.

 The reason why he is paying child support is because he makes more money then me and I was credited with paying all of the child care, that is why there was money owed to me.

Thanks again for your help

 

Ok giving my opinion on this, I believe that when the children are with him, that he should be paying for the lunch and as you said when they are with you, you make sure they have food.  In all honestly that seems very fair,but that is only an opinion....Let me do some asking around and get you some more information on this.  What is his answer when you ask him to pay for lunches when the children are with him?  What answer does he give you?

 

His answer is he thinks I should have to pay for all of the school lunches because I am getting child support. However, keep in mind, school lunches were not figured into the calculations were the amount of child support was figured. They only things that were taken into account was the amount of child care, medical insurance and of course the amount of parenting time each parent had. And because I am making less money and paying all of the child care, he owed me money. Thanks