I sympathise with your situation! I am a step mum and I do as much as I can for my step child. He is amazing and his father is also fantastic, no dead beat dad there. We pay above and beyond with maintenance. Does your child's father get to see your child? The only thing I can think of is to budget as much as you can and esure you are getting what you are entitled to by the government. There are also some very good online jobs, where you can work from home with your computer?

Hope you get some relief soon.

Hi heidi this lot comes from the CSA website basically the costs of the other child because it is biologically his are taken into acount and deducted from his taxable income before they calculate your child support. Your payment is lower now  because his taxable income is lower.

The web address is csa.gov.au - this formula is used for all states.

The cost of a biological or adopted child living with a parent is calculated in the same way as the cost of a child support child. To recognise the care a parent provides for these children, called relevant dependent children, we deduct an amount from the parent’s adjusted taxable income before applying the basic formula.

To calculate an amount for a relevant dependent child, we follow these steps.

1. We calculate the parent’s child support income.
   
    
2. We work out the parent’s care percentage and cost percentage for the relevant dependent child. (This is usually 100 per cent.)
   
    
3. We work out the costs of the relevant dependent child. However, only the income of one parent is used—not the combined income of both parents.
   
    
4. We multiply the cost of the child by the cost percentage. This is the relevant dependent child amount.
   
    
5. We deduct this amount from the parent’s adjusted taxable income, to get their child support income.
   
    
6. We then go back to the basic formula and follow the steps to work out the child support payable for the child support children.
   
   Ps the we is not me its the website wording (cut and paste)

Firstly, the child support agency are useless. Living on centrelink is VERY hard. I was only a single parent for less than a year. Neither of us can work either. So we live on centrelink as well.  We moved to rural victoria for the cheap rent. We budget every last dollar. We shop around for cheapest prices. Which can mean getting meat from one place, fruit and veg from another, and school snacks from another then getting what else we need from the supermarket. I buy my kids shoes from factory outlets. I do not drive. We get $200 more a fortnight than you would be getting, it does make a huge differance. All my bills are on fortnightly installments. They are fully paid when we get the bill. I buy my boys a t-shirt or a piece of clothing each pay day so I never have to buy them in one go. I buy school uniforms piece by piece as well, along with other school supplies. Then when the new year starts all I need to do is get it out of the cupboard. I take out my centrelink loan before x-mas for the kids toys, and the family tax benifit loan at the start of the year covers my sons birthdays. I live on a very tight budget. I can never afford to buy myself anything, but my family is comfy. We have managed to budget so carefully we have now gotten so used to having no money in our pockets. But we have a nice home and our children have all the things middle class kids have. ie home theatre system, 50 inch plasma, a xbox 360. My oldest son has a big tv and nintendo wii in his room. But we gave up smoking to afford these. What we save a week on smokes covers the repayments. 

Its a matter of really taking a long hard look at your bugdet, seeing what savings can be made and shopping around or shopping smarter. Even if it does mean running around! We moved 300kms to save $150 a week on rent.

As for shared care, I have had little experience there.

Dont be afraid to go to the salvos or whom ever you have in your area. They can provide help with food vouchers, rent, bills, once a year Telsra gives them the funds to help with phone bills. I know it feels awful doing this. But sometimes getting food vouchers can mean buying the kids those shoes they need for school, paying that internet bill ect ect.

I hope this has helped.

Hi there,

My current partner pays 3 times the amount of maintenence for his 3 children and still has taken on me and 6 kids financially!! my ex pays about 62 dollars a week (when he actually does pay coz hes 3 grand behind in payment) and has our children only half the amount we have my current partners kids.. Basically my ex has an assessment of 62 dollars a week on his full time wage and only sees his kids once a fortnight and for the rest of the time doesnt really even keep in touch..we spent thousands on the 9 kids we have for xmas and he gets em a xmas stocking each... My current partner happily supports his 3 children and enjoys 2 days a week with them.. yet nobody cuts him any slack when it comes to him taking on a partner and another 6 children that arent even his!  I have decided to try and see the maintenence factor as what HIS contribution is to our kids, theres plenty of guys out there who pay basically nothing to support their kids and I say we should just throw the towel in and go well fine then, if you sleep at night knowing that your children are missing out because you dont want to take responsibility..then go ahead and do it! I'm sure its not going to be very much fun answering the childrens questions later on in life about why he didnt care to give them any support at all to have the finer things in life. In my experience, the system doesnt seem to really take into account the financial inabilities of the custodial parent and the need for the father to pay more where possible to help her/him raise the children from the relationship thats gone bad.

I really feel for your situation, as do most people empathise with us trying to raise 9 children with no help from him or anyone else for that matter.. and it would be nice if he gave you more.. you can call for another assessment to be done..i did this too but they basically said to me that i have to prove that hes earning more than he is.. hes a full time wage and still this is his assessment so yeh.. its likely not to change a great deal..

The child assessment now needs to allow him to support his new child aswell as the child you have together and it will take into account these things.. I would call CSA direct and ask to speak to your caseworker and have her/him explain to you the assessment and why it is the way that it is, but it wont necessarily make sense.

Hoping you get some answers

Cheers from Mel xx