This past weekend, my middle son (the one who moved in with his dad last summer) announced he wanted to move back home with us. Now, this made me really happy – I was upset when he left, my current husband was devastated (he considers the boys his, biology or not), and even though we have visitation two weekends a month, we’ve missed him while he was gone. There are definitely budget impacts involved in his return home though.

Let’s start with the really good news: I will no longer have to pay child support, and under Federal guidelines, my ex-husband will now have to pay me support instead. Total budget impact? Net gain of about $980. That is a huge gain! Also possible (but not guaranteed): with three children at home, we may qualify again for the Canada Child Tax Benefit. This would be worth between $50 and $75 monthly, I estimate. But I’m not counting on any of that money.

However, children cost money. Increased expenditures include additional groceries (~$150/month), additional clothing (~$50/month), an allowance for him (~$50/month), school & activity expenses (~$120/month), personal care items, and other sundry costs. I have estimated my cost impact to be $400/month, give or take a little.

However, that leaves us with a net positive monthly amount of almost $600/month! So this is plan number one for repaying the RRSP loan we’re taking. If we can dedicated most of this money towards that repayment starting in September, we can have the loan paid back almost completely by March 1, 2013 – the deadline to avoid all tax penalties. Big win!

The alternative plan we had for paying back the loan cannot happen if my son moves back home – we were planning on renting out his bedroom to a college student for next year. We told him this last month (which may be what contributed to his decision to come back home, I’m not sure). In our area, we could rent out a shared room in our house for between $400 & $500 per month. We live fairly close to the biggest university in our province, we have a large, comfortable home, are on a bus route, or could offer a parking spot if needed. I was estimating on the low end of $400; even with small increased utility and water costs, I estimated we would be able to put about $350 per month towards paying back Bruce’s RRSP loan. This would allow us to pay back most of the loan by March 1, 2013 as well.