Raising children in New Jersey can be challenging. Meeting children’s needs developmentally, emotionally and physically can be difficult. Meeting children’s needs can also be costly. Children need the basics such as food clothing and shelter, but they also have medical costs, extracurricular costs, child-care costs, costs for various forms of entertainment and other costs. All of these costs can add up quickly.
It is important that both parents are contributing to these costs as well. This is true whether the parents are married or not. However, how parents may pay these costs depends on the relationship status of the parents. If the parents are married, they will simply need to ensure there is enough money in the accounts to pay for their children’s needs. If the parents are divorced or no longer in a relationship, one parent will generally be required to pay the other child support to ensure the custodial parent is not paying for all of the costs.
The expenses covered by child support payments
The amount that a parent pays depends on a number of different factors such as the parents’ respective incomes, the cost for medical insurance premiums and if there are child-care costs. The child support calculations take into account all these factors and determine the amount of the monthly child support payment.
These payments are designed to pay for the children’s basic needs such as food, clothing and shelter as well as the parent’s share of the health insurance premiums and child-care costs. The payments may also be increased to pay for extra medical needs, travel required for parenting time and other extraordinary costs.
The factors that courts in New Jersey use to determine the child support obligation are the same for every situation. However, the amount that a parent will pay the other one depends on the unique financial circumstances of the parents. Their income and amounts they pay for the children’s needs will affect the total obligation. These calculations can become complicated and consulting with experienced attorneys could be beneficial.
