BM sent DH and email yesterday asking him to help pay for some additional expenses for SD11. Right now, we are on the shared percentage placement formula for child support (they look at both of their incomes since DH has 40% placement). Before we were on this schedule, DH paid full child support and he wasn't required to pay these extra expenses. With the shared placement child support formula, it basically states in WI that your responsibility for “variable costs” should match the percentage of time you have the child (in our case, 40%). It also should be listed in the child support order, but it is not.

We don't have a problem helping out a little, but it's frustrating for a few reasons.
#1: BM has never asked for this in the past 2 years (that's when the child support went to a shared formula) and she decides to ask now when we have a 19 month old son at home and twins on the way. We are already on a somewhat tight budget and soon we will jump from 1 child in daycare and diapers to 3! Also, because of jumping from 2 kids to 4 kids, we need to build a new bedroom for SD11 which will cost quite a bit (even if we cut some corners) and get a different vehicle because we won't be able to fit 3 carseats and SD in what we have now. I have no idea how we are going to even come up with these costs. There is also much higher chances of going on bedrest when pregnant with twins, so if that happens, I am off work without pay for both bedrest and maternity leave.

#2: The problem is that everyone has a different definition of what a "reasonable" cost is. BM is very high maintenance and gets the best of everything and she is training SD11 to be the same way. If we have to pay 40%, we don't think we should have to pay for 40% of what she purchases if we are able to find things cheaper than that and just as good. We are on a budget ourselves and don't buy anything very high end. If we are paying 40% of everything, I guarantee BM will just start spending even more money and we don't have that to spend.

#3: BM also implied in the email that she is going to sign SD11 up for Basketball Cage Team (which is a traveling team with 1-2 day tournaments on weekends) as well as Traveling/Tournament Softball (again, on weekends). We have placement every other weekend and can't commit to being gone that many weekends. With working full-time, weekends are my only time to get things done around the house, do my grocery shopping, meal planning, etc. DH also currently works every Saturday, so that leaves me to do it all and that just isn't going to happen, especially when I have 3 little ones and I am making homemade baby food and nursing to try to save some money and give the babies the best. We want SD involved in things, but she already is even without doing the traveling teams. She is in school basketball, softball during the summer (weeknights), soccer during the spring, band, girl scouts and cadets.

We are extremely frustrated and don't even know how to respond to BM's email since it is such a gray area in the state of Wisconsin because of the definition of "variable costs" and reasonable costs meaning different things to everyone.