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Child Care Cost

ohjessicuhohjessicuh member
in Single Parents
I work at a Police Department as a Dispatcher, which is shift work. I work from 2pm to 10 pm, Friday thru Tuesday. I am obviously unable to put my daughter in regular daycare and I've had to hire someone to come to my apartment and watch my daughter. This women works 45 hours a week and I pay her $280/week and I withhold taxes. This evens out to be about $6 to $7 dollars an hour that she makes. She was the cheapest I could find. I have an out of court agreement with the father of my child. He pays me $575 a month for child support and child care. That only covers half of daycare and a little towards her diapers,food,etc. He now feels that he pays too much money. He is trying to take me to court to lower the payment. We both make the same amount of money an hour. I've been looking up child support guidelines in Alabama. For child care, the court has a limit on the amount of childcare costs that can be included for child support. It's $91/week. How on earth can that be? I don't have a job that allows me to put my daughter in regular daycare. Does anyone have any knowledge on this? Can the courts make exceptions or is this a cut and dry thing? If it is cut and dry then he would only have to pay like $400 dollar in child support. I would pretty much be paying for everything. How can the courts think that is fair?
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Re: Child Care Cost

  • preggersin2011preggersin2011 member
    How did the courts arrive at his current $575/month amount?
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  • kllrbnnykllrbnny

    Have you looked into different care situations? There are in home group day care places that do 24 hr care. I would imagine that a group dc place would be cheaper than what is essentially a nanny.

    In the end, if you can't afford daycare for your current job you may have to look into changing jobs.

    I agree that you need to talk to a lawyer though. 

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  • preggersin2011preggersin2011 member
    imagetifanico:

    imagepreggersin2011:
    How did the courts arrive at his current $575/month amount?

    They agreed the amount between the two of them.

    You need to talk to a lawyer because that information cannot be accurate. 

    Oh, somehow I missed reading that. In my state support is very black & white. It is a mathematical calculation based upon both parent's annual gross pay. From the little google searching, it appears that Alabama has something similar. I found 90 dollar/week that you are talking about, but that doesn't mean you cannot use other parts of the child support payment in order to pay for child care. The amount owed to your child might actually be a lot higher if you go through and fill out the worksheet.

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