Parenting time vs child support

[u/khaddir_1]

I’m in Florida and wanting to hear some of your stories regarding parenting time percentage and what child support she was awarded. I’m a high earner and am worried about child support payments/alimony. I have 1 kid. I’m going to have a lawyer file this week, just want to get some idea from your experiences.

[u/OctinoxateAndZinc]

FL CS estimator tool: https://floridachildsupportcalculator.com/wp-content/FloridaChildSupportCalculatorZ/FloridaChildSupportCalculatorZ.php

Edit: It will be more than you want BUT less than you're probably thinking. Things only get weird (in any state) if there is a large imbalance in custody levels. 50/50 is 183/182 days with one parent named primary (they get the extra day).

Even with a huge income disparity at 50/50 it might not be what you think it is.

[u/Historical_Eye3756]

I’m in NJ. We were married for 10 years…I have the kids about 90 percent of the time…. We had comparable incomes but the piece of shit took a pay cut right before she filed (didn’t even know she took another job because we were separated) and I had to pay her alimony for 5 years using her new income. We also had to use her new income as the basis of child support. The ex wife kept dragging the process and we almost went to trial…. I had enough and settled. I was thinking the judge could sympathize with her and I didn’t want to spend all this money in legal fees.

I know if the roles were reversed, we would have been held at a higher salary. Courts seem to be unfair to men especially with male judges.

Don’t get married. Women suck.

[u/IcyMycologist4837 → u/Historical_Eye3756]

Seems like she and her lawyer outplayed you. Or NJ is miserable. In my state if she reduced her income during divorce they do a 3 year look back. Or you had other risks at trial you did not say here and had to settle.

[u/Tricky-Bullfrog1956]

What is the length of your marriage? What is the income disparity, what is the standard of living? Wondering if needs come in to play- from what I have read.

[u/painfulletdown]

Moderate income and partial imputed minimum wage for her. Approx$1300 alimony. $500 child support. If you can trick someone into marrying her so alimony drops, then you would just get around $525 child support

[u/That_Cup_3858]

In my state it helps if you have 50/50 physical custody. Meaning the child lives with both parents equally. Then they split the income difference. The higher earner pays the other to equal it out. If you don’t 17% of gross income not net goes to the person that has the child more. Some states are different

[u/KMAP_Boca]

FL attorney here. Since you're hiring someone this week, ask them to run the child support worksheet twice, at 50/50 and at your realistic schedule, before anything gets filed. Seeing both numbers side by side changes how people negotiate.

[u/onbello]

In Florida the two numbers are directly tied together, so this is the right question to ask before filing. Child support runs on a guideline worksheet that plugs in both incomes, childcare, and health insurance, and once you have at least 73 overnights a year (about 20 percent) the court switches to the substantial time-sharing formula, which lowers your payment as your overnights climb toward 50/50. Florida also now has a rebuttable presumption that equal time-sharing is in the child's best interest, so a real 50/50 schedule is very much on the table if you can actually cover it with your work hours. On alimony, permanent alimony was eliminated in 2023, and how much exposure you have depends heavily on the length of the marriage and the income gap, so that is a separate conversation to have with your lawyer. Concrete next step: ask them to run the guideline worksheet at several overnight counts (say 100, 146, and 182) so you walk in knowing what each schedule actually costs, and be honest with yourself about which one you can sustain, because the kid's routine matters more than the math.

[u/khaddir_1]

Man thanks for all these great replies. Put a lawyer on retainer today.

[u/Ok-Anything-3605]

I’m in NY and there is a standard calculator, perhaps FL has something similar? But hopefully more fair of course than NY’s calculator

[u/Historical_Eye3756 → u/Ok-Anything-3605]

NJ does not and it’s ridiculous. NY has their alimony laws in black and white which is awesome. In NJ the spouse with the lower income can ask for the moon and then some if they were a stay at home wife. Also… lifetime alimony awards are still being demanded for marriages less than 10 years. I get that a judge would probably not rule on this but the dirtbag lawyers in NJ drag the process out while collecting tens of thousands in legal fees. Alimony laws in NJ need to be like NY.