Most people assume that the parent writing the bigger check every month gets something back from the IRS. That assumption, it turns out, is one of the most expensive mistakes a divorced parent can make. When I sat down with Tommy Bianchi in the parking lot of a Denny’s off I-10 in Phoenix on a Tuesday morning — his van loaded with HVAC equipment, kids’ drawings tucked behind the sun visor — he told me he’d been operating under exactly that assumption for three years.
He was wrong. And the math has been punishing him ever since.
The Divorce That Rewrote His Entire Financial Life
Tommy Bianchi is 46, a licensed HVAC technician who has worked the Phoenix metro area for nearly two decades. He earns roughly $6,400 a month before taxes — solid money in most contexts. But three years ago, his marriage ended, and with it went the house, the joint savings account, and any financial cushion he’d spent years building.
The divorce wasn’t just emotionally brutal. It was fiscally catastrophic. Between attorneys, court filings, mediation sessions that went nowhere, and a final settlement he describes as lopsided, Tommy walked away with $22,000 in legal fees he’d put entirely on two credit cards. His ex-wife kept the house. He moved into a one-bedroom apartment in Tempe at $1,350 a month.
“I didn’t fight it the way I should have,” Tommy told me, stirring his coffee without looking up. “I just wanted it to be over. I thought I could rebuild. I didn’t realize I was starting from negative $22,000.”
The court-ordered child support — $1,600 per month for his two daughters, ages 9 and 12 — represents roughly 25 percent of his gross monthly income. After taxes, rent, the credit card minimums, and utilities, Tommy is left with what he calls “gas money and guilt.”
The Tax Trap Nobody Warned Him About
Here is where Tommy’s story takes a turn that many divorced parents share but few talk about openly: he spent the first year after the divorce convinced that his child support payments would reduce his tax bill. His coworker had mentioned something about deductions. A buddy said something about dependents.
None of it was accurate. According to the IRS, child support payments are neither deductible by the payer nor taxable to the recipient. They are treated as a purely personal transfer of income — invisible to the tax code in every way that might benefit the parent writing the check.
Tommy also lost the ability to claim his daughters as dependents. Under their custody agreement, his ex-wife has primary custody and claims both children on her taxes each year. That means Tommy cannot claim the Child Tax Credit, which for tax year 2025 is worth up to $2,000 per qualifying child. He is, in effect, funding 25 percent of his gross income toward their upbringing while receiving zero corresponding tax recognition for it.
Every Other Weekend and the Spending It Costs Him
Tommy sees his daughters every other weekend. That arrangement, he told me, drives a pattern of spending that he knows is irrational and cannot seem to stop.
A typical visit runs Friday evening through Sunday afternoon. In that window, Tommy estimates he spends between $300 and $500 — movies, meals out, a trip to Top Golf, new shoes one of the girls mentioned wanting. “I want them to feel like their dad isn’t struggling,” he said. “Even if their dad is absolutely struggling.”
Over the course of a year, those weekends add up to roughly $8,000 in discretionary spending — money that, on paper, does not exist in his budget. He floats it on one of the same credit cards still carrying divorce legal fees.
When I asked Tommy whether he’s thought about pulling back on those weekend expenses, he didn’t hesitate. “Of course I have. I think about it every Sunday night after I drop them off. And then two weeks later I’m at the mall again.” He paused. “It’s not logical. I know it’s not logical.”
The House He Can’t Get Back To
Three years into renting, Tommy’s original plan was to save for a down payment and buy something modest — a starter home, something with a yard for when the girls visit. That plan has not survived contact with his actual finances.
A conventional mortgage in the Phoenix market currently requires a down payment of roughly 5 to 20 percent on a median-priced home. According to Zillow’s Phoenix data, the median home value in the area sits above $400,000 — meaning a 10 percent down payment alone would require $40,000 in cash, not counting closing costs.
Tommy’s savings account currently holds $1,100. He has not been able to add to it consistently in over 18 months.
His debt-to-income ratio — a figure lenders use to evaluate mortgage applications — is a significant barrier. Child support payments are counted as a monthly debt obligation by most mortgage underwriters, per guidelines from Fannie Mae’s selling guidelines. When factored alongside his credit card minimums and rent history, Tommy’s DTI likely exceeds the 43 percent threshold that most conventional lenders prefer not to cross.
Where He Is Now, and What He Knows
When I met Tommy in March 2026, he had recently had what he called a “come to Jesus” conversation with himself after his older daughter asked if he was okay. She’s 12. He didn’t have a good answer.
He has started tracking his spending for the first time since the divorce — not with an app, but with a notebook he keeps in his van. He’s begun packing lunches. He renegotiated one of his credit card interest rates from 24.9 percent down to 19.5 percent after calling and asking. He sold a second set of tools he no longer needed for $800, which went directly toward the principal on his higher-balance card.
He is not out of the woods. The credit card debt is still substantial. The house is still a distant goal. The child support order does not expire until his younger daughter turns 18 — which is nine years away.
“I’m not bitter about the money I pay for my kids. That’s theirs. That’s right,” Tommy said, and he meant it — I could tell by how quickly he said it, without the defensive edge that creeps into his voice when he talks about the legal fees or the house. “What I’m bitter about is how nobody told me any of this before I signed the papers. Nobody sat me down and said, ‘Here’s how your tax return changes, here’s what a lender will see, here’s what the next ten years actually look like.'”
He finished his coffee. He had a job across town — a commercial unit in a medical building that had gone down overnight. He grabbed his keys.
“My girls think I’m fine,” he said at the door. “That part I’m getting right, at least.”
I watched him pull out of the parking lot, the white van merging into Phoenix traffic, the kids’ drawings still behind the visor. There are roughly 13.4 million custodial parents in the United States, according to U.S. Census Bureau data — and for every one of them, there is a noncustodial parent navigating a financial reality that rarely gets reported. Tommy Bianchi is one of them, doing the math in a notebook, one job at a time.
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