Divorce can sometimes be messy in Illinois; one issue that may linger long after a divorce is finalized is child support. Getting an ex-spouse to pay the proper amount of child support on time can be difficult. If that is the case for you, you probably can’t wait for a court to take action against your ex. Instead, you must learn how to budget with inconsistent child support.
What child support covers
Child support in the state of Illinois is not a blank check. Instead, the law mandates that funds are spent on certain expenditures. These include:
• groceries
• children’s attire
• rent or other housing expenses
• medical bills
• tuition
• transportation to and from school
• extracurricular activities expenses
• child care
• healthcare costs
• school supplies
Fine tuning your budget
Even though these expenses can be significant, a divorced spouse may resist making the appropriate support payments. Enforcing child support payments through the legal system can take time. In the meantime, learning to better budget can go a long way towards helping you stretch the money you do have. This can include strategies such as:
• Creating two budgets for each scenario of receiving or not receiving child support
• Creating an emergency savings account to help cover gaps in payments
• Eliminating unnecessary expenses such as streaming or cable bills
• Giving highest priority to necessities like rent, food and medical bills in your budgets
• Budgeting ahead for the week, month and year
• Forgoing leisure expenses such as vacations
• Having the discipline to stick to your budgets
• Stocking up on food and other necessities before they are needed
Sadly, depending on your ex, child support payments may not always arrive when they should. Your children should not be forced to suffer as a result. Learning to better budget and sticking to those budgets can help you get by when child support payments do not arrive on time.
