It is completely possible that your ex is spending child support payments in a way that you don't approve. I'm not sure how she may be specifically exploiting your settlement and you don't say.

The thing is though you may suspect (and may be correct) in your assessment you just can not know without invading her privacy and exerting some type of control over her.

I'm not sure how she could collect unemployment that often or for that long. Maybe the state she lives in is particularly generous.

She is working a tipped job. It is possible she is very good at it and puts in a lot of hours and gets a lot of cash tips.

Maybe she picks up stuff and resells it for a profit. Maybe she does house sitting or pet sitting during the school year. Or watches other people's children sometimes.

If you don't have a PI following her around you can't really say.

Does she buy cheap groceries but then drives a nice car? Wear expensive clothes?

A lot of people do things like that and she is free to do so.

I know a lady with a small business and a nice house. I was invited to her house for Christmas dinner and was surprised to find her house cluttered, unkempt, and her kitchen stocked with a lot of stuff I would trash- dollar store quality utensils that were broken/dull, free plastic cups from restaurants, random mismatched dishes, worn out pots and pans. She drives a big SUV and just doesn't seem to care much about keeping a nice home.

Once you are divorced from someone you don't get a say about that stuff. I know my ex is using MJ, saw a bunch of half empty liquor bottles lined up on the kitchen floor, from my daughter know that he is on his second serious SO and has dated/hooked up with a lot of other women. Heck, my daughter told me that one time she woke up around 3 am and found out she was alone in the house and then he also didn't answer his phone when she tried to call him. There is plenty of stuff I don't like.

Even though he has much more income I was the one buying clothes and personal hygiene stuff for our daughter. I covered her school lunches and took her to appointments.

He has come at me a couple of times already crying that my place was too nice for someone without money, that I need to pay for her medical expenses (legit, but he hasn't given me any documentation), that he thinks his child support payments should be reduced.

Divorce sucks. Divorced with kids sucks more.

You say that you would pay to have a receipt system. Better to just spend that money on whatever you think your children need and aren't getting for some reason.

Yes. And maybe people should choose wisely who they marry and/or have kids with so this type of crap doesn’t happen.