This Dad is Refusing to Pay for His Daughter’s School Supplies & His Reasoning is Surprisingly Justified
Reddit is rallying around a dad who won’t pay for school supplies for good reason. He took to the “AITA” forum to explain that his ex-wife recently took his daughter to buy all the back-to-school necessities. An important note: this ex-wife lives with her boyfriend (with whom she had an affair) and his daughter, who is around the same age as their child.
“I make significantly more money than her, and I am happy to pay these costs as we share equal parenting time and I don’t want my daughter to go without something because of our new situation,” he explained. “My ex-wife asked me to help reimburse the costs. She claimed the total came out to around $350 dollars.”
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That number didn’t sound right to the dad. It just sounded like a whole lot for school supplies. He asked if she could show him the receipt and she got upset, saying “no one keeps receipts” and he was being an “a-hole” for not trusting her. He started to try to figure out how much the price tag would realistically be.
“I decided to get a rough idea of what it should cost by pulling up all the supplies on Walmart, and the total came out to around $215. Based upon this, I have concluded that she likely shopped for our daughter and her boyfriend’s daughter at the same time, however, that’s obviously just a hunch and I have no realistic way of knowing that.”
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The two are having a back-and-forth about this, with his ex-wife getting angrier and angrier. Now, the dad is turning to Reddit for help. Perhaps the right thing to do is just pay for the supplies and call it a day? Reddit came through with advice, wisdom and reassurance that he was right to be suspicious.
“NTA. Asking for a receipt is a perfectly reasonable request, and how everything should be handled,” one user commented. “Also, it’s one of those things that tends to pop up in later hearings, that one day you may wish you had documented.” They added an additional solution. “However, it would also be perfectly reasonable for you to pay $175 as ‘your half,’ and ask that next time she simply provide receipts (which would coincidentally be perfectly inline with your real estimate of costs).”
People were divided as to whether he should pay half or not. Some said he should contribute, regardless of if his ex-wife fudged the numbers. “It’s also not okay to contribute $0 – until she can prove otherwise, I would calculate a reasonable amount to give,” a commenter suggested.
Others disagreed. “No receipt, no payment,” one person wrote. “She can take it out of her monthly child support check or she can go back to the store and tell them she needs a receipt for a certain day. All she needs is the atm/credit card she paid with. Most stores can give her a receipt right away because it’s in their system.”
What do you think? Should he pay?
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