The coffee shop on the east side of Phoenix was nearly empty on a Tuesday morning when Tommy Bianchi slid into the booth across from me, still in his work shirt from an early call. He set his phone face-down on the table, folded his hands, and said, almost before I could introduce myself: “I’m not embarrassed about any of it. I just want people to know this stuff actually happens to regular guys.”
Tommy is 46 years old. He’s been an HVAC technician for nearly two decades, the kind of work that pays decently in the Arizona heat but leaves your knees aching by fifty. He owns no home. He has no savings to speak of. And every other Friday, when his two kids — ages 11 and 14 — show up at his apartment door, he finds himself reaching for a credit card he swore he’d stop using.
The Divorce That Rewrote the Math
Tommy and his ex-wife separated in the spring of 2022, after twelve years of marriage. He doesn’t talk much about the reasons — that’s not the story he wanted to tell me. The story he wanted to tell me is about the money, specifically how fast it disappeared and how quietly the debt accumulated before he understood what was happening.
The divorce was finalized later that year. Under the settlement, his ex-wife kept the house — a three-bedroom they’d bought in 2017 for $268,000, which by 2022 had appreciated considerably in Phoenix’s inflated market. Tommy walked away with his truck, his tools, and an agreement to pay $1,600 per month in child support.
That $1,600 represents roughly 25 percent of Tommy’s gross monthly income. He earns about $76,000 a year before taxes — solid money for a skilled tradesman in Phoenix. But after federal and state taxes, the child support payment, and rent on a two-bedroom apartment that costs him $1,450 a month, his actual breathing room is thin.
The legal fees were a separate disaster. Tommy told me he burned through two attorneys during the proceedings, and by the time everything was finalized, he’d charged approximately $22,000 across three credit cards. “I didn’t have a choice,” he said. “You can’t go into a divorce without a lawyer and expect to come out okay. I know guys who tried that. It doesn’t work.”
What Child Support Actually Does to a Budget
When I asked Tommy to walk me through a typical month, he pulled out his phone and opened a budgeting app he’d downloaded six months earlier. He showed it to me without hesitation — income on one side, obligations on the other.
After his $1,600 child support payment, $1,450 in rent, roughly $420 in minimum payments across his credit cards, utilities, gas for the truck, and groceries, Tommy said he clears somewhere between $400 and $600 in discretionary income most months. That’s before anything breaks, before an unexpected co-pay, before the weekends.
One thing Tommy didn’t fully understand until he spoke with a tax preparer in early 2023: child support payments are not tax-deductible for the paying parent, and they are not counted as taxable income for the recipient. According to IRS Topic 452, child support is treated separately from alimony in the tax code, which means Tommy gets no federal tax relief on that $19,200 he pays out every year.
“Nobody told me that during the whole process,” he said. “My lawyer was focused on the settlement. Nobody sat down and said, ‘Here’s what your taxes are going to look like next April.'”
Every Other Weekend and the Spending He Can’t Explain
This is the part of the story Tommy seemed most conflicted about. When I asked about his weekends with the kids, his posture changed — he sat up a little straighter, and for the first time in our conversation, he smiled.
His son is 14, into basketball and video games. His daughter is 11, and she loves going to the movies. Every other Friday they come to his apartment. And Tommy, by his own admission, spends money he doesn’t have trying to make those 48 hours feel like enough.
“I took them to Top Golf last month,” he told me. “That was $180 for the three of us. The month before, I bought my son new Jordans because his old ones were beat up and I knew his mom hadn’t gotten him new ones yet. That was another $160.” He paused. “I know I shouldn’t. I know I’m just making the credit card worse.”
Researchers who study post-divorce parenting have a term for what Tommy describes — some call it “Disneyland parenting,” though that label feels uncharitable for a man who is clearly motivated by love, not guilt alone. According to data from the U.S. Census Bureau, noncustodial parents — who are disproportionately fathers — often report feeling pressure to compensate for limited time with gifts and activities. Tommy isn’t a statistic to himself. But the pattern is real and widespread.
“It’s not like I think I can buy their love,” he said, with a flash of irritation. “I just want them to have a good time. I want them to leave Sunday night feeling like their dad showed up. Is that so hard to understand?”
Three Years In, Still No Path to a Down Payment
When Tommy moved into his current apartment in the fall of 2022, he told himself it was temporary. Two years, maybe less. He’d pay down the cards, rebuild his savings, and buy something modest — a townhouse, a small single-family home, anything he could call his own again.
It’s now early 2026. The cards are not paid down. In fact, after a slow leak in his truck’s transmission last summer that cost $2,400 to repair, his total revolving credit card debt has barely moved from where it started.
He’s made some progress — his credit score has climbed back from what he described as a “disaster” in late 2022. But a 658 score and less than $1,000 in savings puts homeownership out of reach in a Phoenix market where median home prices remain well above $400,000, according to recent Zillow market data. A conventional 3 percent down payment on a $400,000 home would require $12,000 upfront — not counting closing costs.
“Sometimes I think the math is just impossible,” Tommy said. “Like, I did the numbers once. If I save $200 a month — and that’s on a good month — it takes me five years just to get to a down payment. And by then, what does the market look like?”
The Reflection That Doesn’t Have a Clean Ending
Before we wrapped up, I asked Tommy what he’d tell someone just entering a divorce with kids and debt and no real financial plan. He was quiet for a moment, turning his coffee cup in his hands.
He also said something that stuck with me as I drove back across the city. He said he doesn’t regret the weekends. Not the Top Golf trip, not the Jordans, not the movie tickets or the pizza or the extra large popcorn his daughter always wants. He knows, intellectually, that the money is a problem. He just doesn’t know what version of himself would say no to his kids — and he’s not sure he wants to find that version.
“They’re only this age once,” he said. “The debt will still be there when they’re grown. But they won’t be kids anymore.”
Tommy Bianchi is still renting. He still has roughly $19,500 in credit card debt. His child support obligation runs for another seven years, until his youngest turns 18. He is, by almost any measure, financially stuck — and he’s the first person to say so. But he showed up to that coffee shop in a clean work shirt, told his story without flinching, and drove away to a service call before 9 a.m.
Some stories don’t resolve cleanly. This is one of them. But the fact that he can name his numbers, sit with the discomfort of them, and still choose presence over paralysis — that’s its own kind of progress.
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