Roughly 19 million Americans pay child support each year, according to the U.S. Census Bureau — but the financial math of being the paying parent is rarely discussed alongside the emotional cost of losing a marriage. What gets even less attention is what happens to that parent’s financial life five, ten years down the road.
When I met Tommy Bianchi at a coffee shop in north Phoenix on a Tuesday afternoon in March, he had just come off a 10-hour shift installing commercial HVAC units in the Scottsdale heat. He was still in his work clothes — a blue Dickies shirt with his name stitched above the pocket — and he ordered a black coffee before I’d even pulled out my notebook.
Tommy is 46. He’s been an HVAC technician for over two decades. He earns roughly $76,800 a year before taxes — solid working-class money in most cities, but in Phoenix’s inflated housing market, it feels thinner than it should.
The Financial Wreckage Left Behind
Three years ago, Tommy’s marriage of eleven years ended in a divorce he describes as “civil, but brutal.” His ex-wife kept the house — a 3-bedroom in Tempe they’d bought together in 2016 for $278,000. By the time the divorce finalized in early 2023, that home had appreciated to roughly $410,000. Tommy walked away with nothing from that equity.
The legal fees were the second blow. Tommy told me he spent $22,000 in attorney’s fees across 14 months of proceedings, almost all of it charged to two credit cards. At an average APR hovering around 22%, that balance grew even as he made payments.
He now rents a two-bedroom apartment in Mesa for $1,450 a month — a place he keeps clean and stocked with his kids’ favorite snacks for when they visit. “It’s not a house,” he told me. “But I made it feel like something.”
The Child Support Math Nobody Prepares You For
Tommy pays $1,600 a month in child support for his two children, ages 10 and 13. That works out to $19,200 a year — approximately 25% of his gross income. What catches many divorced parents off guard is the federal tax treatment of these payments.
According to the IRS, child support payments are neither tax-deductible for the payer nor considered taxable income for the recipient. Unlike alimony arrangements finalized before 2019, there is no federal tax offset. Tommy gets nothing back at filing time on that $1,600 a month.
“Nobody sat me down and said, ‘Hey, that $1,600 — you’re paying that with after-tax dollars,'” Tommy told me. “I figured it out doing my own taxes the first year. By then it was already locked in.”
After child support, rent, utilities, and minimum payments on the credit card debt, Tommy’s monthly discretionary income sits at roughly $400 to $600, depending on overtime. In Phoenix — where the median home price hovered near $415,000 in early 2026 — that number makes saving for a down payment nearly impossible on any reasonable timeline.
The Weekend Problem — When Love Costs More Than You Have
Tommy sees his kids every other weekend. That’s roughly eight days a month with the two people he says keep him going. It’s also where the budget consistently breaks down.
“I know I overspend,” he said before I’d even asked. “I take them to Top Golf, I take them to dinner, I let them pick whatever they want. It’s not smart. But I’m not going to be the dad who says, ‘Sorry, we can’t do anything this weekend.'”
Tommy estimates he spends between $300 and $500 on each visit weekend — meals, activities, small gifts. That’s potentially $1,000 extra a month on top of the $1,600 already leaving his account in formal child support. He calls it “stress-spending” and doesn’t flinch at the label.
When I asked whether he’d spoken to anyone about the emotional dimension of the spending, Tommy looked at the table for a moment. “I talked to my buddy about it once,” he said. “He just said, ‘Yeah, that’s dad tax.’ Which — he’s not wrong.”
Three Years Later, Still No Path to a Down Payment
The house question sits heavily on Tommy. He grew up watching his parents build equity, and he believed homeownership was what made you stable. Three years after the divorce finalized, he’s starting to wonder if that window has closed for him.
Phoenix’s housing market has not been kind to would-be buyers. A modest starter home now requires a down payment of at least $14,500 for an FHA loan (3.5% minimum), or closer to $83,000 for a conventional 20% down payment on a $415,000 home. At Tommy’s current savings rate — which he describes as “$200 some months, zero other months” — neither figure is on the horizon.
The credit card debt compounds the problem. Tommy told me he’s been making payments for three years on the original $22,000 in legal fees, but with interest, he estimates he still owes somewhere between $14,000 and $16,000. That debt load would complicate any mortgage application even if he managed to build a down payment.
“I did everything right for twenty years,” he said quietly toward the end of our conversation. “Worked hard, paid my bills, saved a little. And then life just — it resets you. And you’re starting over at 46.”
What Tommy Wants People to Understand
By the time we finished, the coffee shop had emptied out around us. Tommy seemed lighter for having laid the numbers out, which is something I notice often in these interviews — the particular relief of putting dollar figures into plain words.
He doesn’t frame his situation as a warning. He isn’t telling anyone to avoid marriage or to fight differently in divorce court. The bitterness he carries is real, but so is the self-awareness. When I asked what he wished he had known before signing the settlement, he answered without hesitation.
Tommy’s youngest turns 11 next month. He’s already planning a birthday dinner — “whatever she picks, wherever she wants to go.” He’ll probably put part of it on a card.
That tension between the father he wants to be and the financial ceiling pressing down on him is what he carries into every other Friday when he picks up his kids. Three years out from the divorce, the wound isn’t dramatic anymore. It’s just arithmetic. And for Tommy Bianchi, the numbers still don’t add up.
Related: She’s Been Her Brother’s Caregiver for 18 Years — and Her Own Retirement Is Paying the Price
Leave a Reply