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"I spent a bit of time re-reading the original support agreement that Peter and I set up when he first moved out. Granted, I had to pull it together in a hurry (he only gave me 2 weeks notice that he was moving out) and I was using a template that I tweaked a bit, but I missed a lot of very important stuff. First of all, I missed anything having to do with David&amp;#039;s long-term care. I also don&amp;#039;t make it clear when the agreement terminates - meaning it could well do so on their 18th birthday. Not good for David, of course, and also not good for Anna. She doesn&amp;#039;t graduate till June. Am I going to have to sell our house in the middle of her senior year because I can&amp;#039;t make the mortgage payment on half the amount of child support? How ridiculous is that? Thank goodness this is just between us and not filed with a court. It&amp;#039;s far from complete. The biggest omission is that I didn&amp;#039;t break down any of the day-to-day stuff, either, like haircuts and medical co-pays and clothing and lunch money. The list is endless and I seem to shell out for the majority of it. I was reading these guidelines for co-parenting that were written by a mediator, and the second point was spot-on. I think it&amp;#039;s a lot smarter to split the incidental stuff like that by having each parent take something, rather than splitting 50/50. Now that Peter is living in another state, we don&amp;#039;t see each other as often, of course. If it&amp;#039;s not his kid weekend, I can go a long stretch of days without seeing him at all. It&amp;#039;s been a real pain getting to him to get half of whatever I had to pay for, and sometimes, I don&amp;#039;t even try. It would make a lot more sense if I knew he covered lunch money, new shoes and school pictures but I covered medical co-pays, field trip fees and birthday presents for friends. Do you split everything with your ex 50/50 when it comes to incidental expenses? Is it hard to collect, and do you find yourself not even bothering sometimes? "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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