I too thought about taking out the itemized list that he keeps offering. This was the response I got to telling him that $12 a month wasn't going to be reasonable:

**We understand that it's hard to figure out total costs, and like I said, we are just trying to figure out what our bills will be so we can figure out if we can get our house fixed or not. We don't want to get it fixed and then find out we can't afford the payments for it in the future.
Is there any way you can give us a ballpark figure of what you would be expecting, so we can figure out if we can do the repairs or not?
We were figuring the toiletry items and vitamins to be an estimated cost of $120 and then the $80 for the ring(and then $80 the following year for whatever costs arise) and then $50 for drivers training(and then $50 the following year for whatever costs arise) and the $50 towards the ticket (not including our gas to get to Chicago or Detroit) was a total of around $300 a year which equaled to approximately $25 a month more then what you currently are getting.
How about what we have offered and an additional $25 a month raise? That would equal an additional $300 so all in all it would be a total of $600 more then current a year.**

My response back was that it seemed fairly reasonable and that I would put some thought into it...but also that rather than earmarking monies for specific things that we should agree on the set amount (here they are offering $50 per month) to be paid on a specific day per month.

I agree that it isn't going to work for them to send me specific things, but I understand their motivation as then they are able to look for bargains or accept charity on it. Also they can then tell our son that they paid for his drivers ed, or a certain portion for his class ring...not that they shouldn't get credit for helping with certain items but most certainly they need to keep in mind the costs of actually feeding, clothing and raising this child should not be mine alone.