Rebuilding Rob

As Kid 1 is getting ready for college, some schools are asking for additional financial information from both X1 and I. Specifically, there is a form that I have to fill out as a “non-custodial parent“. They want to know the usual stuff; name address, and relevant information. They also asked for some of the figures from my previous income tax returns.

And another thing that they want, and this has probably been, admittedly, the biggest headache for me over the last few days, is a running total of how much child support I paid out in 2023 as well as in 2024.

It gets a little bit sticky because I am paying child support for both kid 1 and kid 2. Furthermore, it gets a little more complicated as I had accrued a balance on Kid 1’s child support account. Because of that, the state stopped deducting money from my paychecks. I wrote about this previously in a post here.

Going through these numbers over the last few days, I came to a shocking realization: child support really isn’t a whole lot of money. That is, in part, because I don’t make a heck of a lot of money. I remember even back during my divorce, when my lawyer came to me with a child support figure he had said “go ahead and take the offer. It’s peanuts.” And in the bigger picture, it really was.

Yes, it was tough in the beginning as I was trying to get caught back up and having additional funds being pulled for my paychecks. But it’s not as if I was starving or anything.

They tell you, and I think this is almost common knowledge now for most people – that the whole purpose of child support payments is to cover the essentials: fool, clothing, shelter, etc. And I must say that it probably doesn’t go much beyond that.

Now granted, I’ve been helping kid to pay his insurance insurance on his car since he turned 16. And his mother and I have been putting money aside for a graduation trip for him for almost as long. Adding those two figures into the formula, it does seem like more of substantial money.

But as for the child support itself, I’m a little shocked. I guess I thought more money was getting taken out of my paychecks for it. Maybe it’s just getting tangled up in my head with costs for my health insurance, life, insurance, and things of that sort.

It’s weird, the guys going through this information today, it was really the first time I had concrete numbers in front of me as to how much money was getting taken out of my paychecks every two weeks. Obviously, I was able to absorb it, granted, it helps that the money came out of my paycheck before I ever even saw it. That was one thing that I didn’t really want to do was having to go in to the court office once or twice a month and either swipe a debit card or write out a check. God bless the electronic age.

But because I had those funds being pulled before I ever even laid eyes on a direct deposit statement, I really had no idea how much, or how little, money was being pulled out of every paycheck. Then, throw another monkey wrench into the works, there are some odd payments here, and there, as their Gregorian calendar is not completely uniform. I am paying for my job every 15 days. There are 52 weeks in a year, which are broken down by 12 months, so it’s not terribly uniform. Four times a year, we do have months that have a “fifth week“ to them.

As a result, I remember seeing some tiny disbursements being made to both X one and X2 from time to time. Furthermore, certain months, it would seem as if there was not a lot of money being pulled. Usually, it was more than made up for on the following month.

But as I started to run through the records, and get closer to the disbursements for a kid one ending, I did begin to see a pattern. It did start to become more uniform, and on several instances, the payments were consistent from one month to the next.

I don’t know if any of this is making sense. But if there are any divorced parents out there who do pay child support and they have of looked at the payments that are going toward their children, they would know what I’m talking about. 

Thanks for stopping by Rebuilding Rob. Be sure to like, 👍 comment and subscribe to my blog below. It’s greatly appreciated! Also, feel free to follow me on social media as well! Check out my most recent posts as well as some earlier, related posts:

• Rob’s Retro Movie Review: This is Spinal Tap (1984) – The Movie That Scaled to Eleven
• A Death in the Family (And My Disposable Income): My Life in Comics
• The Supporting Cast: Navigating the Eras of Male Friendship
• Life is What Happens: A Look Back at My Non-Existent 2025 Vision
• The Moment I Walked Inside a Hallmark Movie

The article “Peanuts” first appeared on Rebuilding Rob.