The decisions that we make in life can effect us in many different ways. Some can be short term. Some you think about for years. But what about the decisions that you have to deal with for the rest of your life? One that many of us can relate to is having children. Children are great and most of us feel like they are the best things in our lives. Unfortunately, many of our relationships don't work out and we are forced to do our parenting from separate households. This is where things get tricky. Now we all know that the non-custodial parent in most cases will have to pay child support to ensure they are fulfilling their financial obligation to their child. So where should the money go?
Now reading that question I know many of you will say the answer is obvious, the kid! I was under this same assumption until I posted this question as a status on facebook about a year ago. The responses threw me for a loop. Some women said that its their mony and they do as they please. Some said that as long as their child is "taken care of" then they can use the money however they see fit. So I started to think.......What does "taken care of" mean? Does it mean that your child is well fed? Does it mean that he/she has enough clothes to wear? Does it mean that they have a roof with working utilities over their head? This is what I got from those who claimed their child was "taken care of" and I'm not sure if I agree.
Having a roof over your head, clothes to wear, and food to eat are the bear minimums for taking care of our children. So if that is taken care of and you have extra money from CHILD support then why would that go anywhere but to your CHILD? You can't find anything else to put it towards? Let's see what we can come up with.
We all would love our children to be successful. For many of us that means getting a college degree or more. But who has money to pay for it? You do! Now this is for those of us who have full custody of your children and they are "taken care of" before the CHILD support check comes. Putting money away for college will not only help you in your out of pocket costs when that time comes but it will help your child not have to take out their whole tuition in loans and be stuck paying them off for the first 20 years of their working life (research 529 plans). Some of us say that we don't have enough but if you put a little to the side every month it will be better than not saving at all. But before we even get to college there is more that can be done. How many of us have life insurance besides what our job gives us? We have no clue when something may happen to us and we have to ensure that our kids are financially taken care of if God forbid we aren't here tomorrow. Take the time to research what type of plan may work for you and your family because it is absolutly necessary to have life insurance if you are a parent. And what about right now? What are your childs interests? What do they love to do? After we find this out we have to give them the opportunity to be involved. If your son or daughter likes to dance, pay for dance lessons. If they like to sing, pay for singing lessons or a voice coach. If they play an instrument, pay for private lessons. These activities will help keep our kids interests on constructive things and make them more well rounded. And what about the summer time? Our children need to learn over the summer also. There are programs everywhere that you can enroll your child (especially high school children) where they can use some or most of their summer learning and partaking in constructive activity (daycamps) so they are not losing all they have learned because of idle time in the summer.
What we don't need to do is take trips, go clubbing, revamp our closets, go on dates, get your hair done with money for CHILD support. Their is always something more that can be done for you child so all of the resources that are specifically for your child, need to be used for your child. When we had our children and took resposibility we also made a sacrifice to ensure their safety before any luxury for ourselves. We must remember this in order to completely do what is right for our children.
Now I know the things I mentioned aren't the easiest things to do or even plan for with everything that goes on in your day to day life. But hey, we make time for gossip don't we? We make sure we know the latest fashions don't we? We know all the latest celebrity drama don't we? So why cant we know about the latest college investment plan? Why can't we know all the local college prep courses/programs? Why cant we know all of the latest activites for children in your area? I think we all have a lot on our plate and can get overwhelmed at times. But in this day and age with all the information at our fingertips, it's up to us to make the choice to know what we can do to make our kids lives as fulfilling and promising as possible. CHILD support should always be used for that very reason.
"The reason most people fail is because they give up what they want most, for what they want at the moment"
