Do you use one salary to pay for private school?

We've done it for 2DC's concurrently for last 5 years...currently 18k annual fees paid from joint net income of 43k. Have 1k/mth mortgage, run 2 old cars, visit family for holidays, home and abroad. Another 5yrs to go! We think it's worth it and life is mostly good, but no monetary cushion can be tough.

We have a combined gross income of about £200k. Our mortgage is around £1500 a month. I'm not convinced we can afford it (although we have 4 children). We have gone (excellent) state for primary. Work your sums through carefully. Do either of you have promotion prospects? Any other income opportunities? Inheritance on the horizon?

That said, my parents sent me to a very good private school on a very average income and without doubt it has opened doors for me.
Housing costs are ridiculous these days though.

We are in The North so school fees aren't too bad plus DD has a 25% scholarship
My freelance work easily pays for it but if it didn't it wouid be ok anyway
There are a lot of much richer families than us at the school I'm sure ( although being in Yorkshire being flash isn't too popular) but it's never been an issue. According to DD anyone trying to Bragg about how much money they have gets slapped down pretty quick by the rest of the kids

I think the stress will be much higher than you think. So start now. Put the fees away in savings and see how it feels. If you do it for years in the run up to secondary then you'll have a cushion of savings to rely on.

If you find it impossible you'll know before your committed.

It's the living on the edge, for years on end that does it for me. I've been there. I also have some friends who on paper could afford it, they thought they could cut back and put two kids through, although they were on over 100k, similar size fees, smaller mortgage. The reality is cutting back is really hard and they ended up up to their eye balls in debt.

I'd agree with the poster who said try it first. From this month take away two grand a month school fees from your monthly spend and see how it works, then factor in annual and additional costs then decide.

My child was privately educated, I only have one, and at this level of income I would not have considered it, the benefits are not enough v the daily struggle, and when she was little it was difficult at times, we may have earned double the ops income, but our mortgage was double and it was still a struggle and we argued over money for the first and only time in our lives.

We also needed to pay for childcare in holidays and not just the cost of living, but the cost of working, from clothes to lunch to transport, and when the big unexpected bills came in, it became stressful. We also wanted to do things like go out with our friends, buy clothes, go on days out, have a take away, have a holiday, but we found we simply couldn't , we had no money and that is fine when an end is in sight but for up to a decade of living like that, no, I don't think the benefits are worth the negative effect on the family.

Give it a shot and see how it goes before deciding,

I never really felt bothered about being poorer than the other pupils (my best mate was on an assisted place - there was no secret about that) - but this resonated with me :

Knowing that your parents are making such a sacrifice for your education can put a horrible stress on the child, who feels that they need to live up to it, and not necessarily do just what they want to do for life.
It's only since I've had kids that I've made my peace with that. They made their choice based on what they knew at the time. And if they had educated my brother privately (he begged for it!) and not me, I may have felt resentful, I cant know for sure.

^ PP covered most things, so i just want to add some i have not yet seen covered above:

Being the 'poor girl' whose parents cannot afford school trips and designer clothes, never mind the foreign holidays that others take for granted is no fun.

Knowing that your parents are making such a sacrifice for your education can put a horrible stress on the child, who feels that they need to live up to it, and not necessarily do just what they want to do for life.

When I finished my degree and was struggling to find somewhere to live, I worked out how much my parents had spent on my educations and seriously, desperately wished they had bought me a flat, or paid for a deposit instead.

The exception might be someone who really isn't very bright, who would have no chance of qualifications and a good life, without the boost private education can provide, anyone else, go for the extras and the holidays, oh and the deposit for a flat.

Have a look at the rate school fees have been rising in England.

Be aware of doing something that you would like, being a part of the mothers with children at that school, rather than what is best for the children.

That isn't because of private school fees by the way! Just wanted to illustrate the scraping-by lifestyle. State schools for us.

We scrape by at the moment. Well, I say scrape by but that's a bit of an insult to people on genuinely low incomes. But we're in an expensive place with high living costs.

Reality is lying awake worrying about an unexpected bill. Our car has just developed a fault and I'm dreading the bill. I'm wrapped in a blanket right now to avoid using the heating. We almost never eat out, or even get a takeaway but we can afford decent food and are good cooks. We bought our children's Christmas presents with gifted Amazon vouchers and from charity shops. We do go on holiday as it keeps us sane, but borrow to do it. We barely save. My kids do some extra-curricular but the cost scares me. We both work full time and can't afford a cleaner, so the weekend is spent cleaning and then shopping in three different shops to make sure we get things as cheaply as possible. Kids' clothes are supermarket/gifts.

So nothing that bad, and we're OK, but it's a constant worry.

I completely agree with nocampinghere.

We are going through this at the moment - waiting for results of private school exam results for DD - but the big revelation for us was how well our local state school stacks up v the private schools in our area. So much so it is my DD and my first choice.

And that's not just about money. We can afford it comfortably - I am not just convinced she would be better off at the private school. Many state schools get great results and offer decent extra curricular activities, including great trips abroad. I wouldn't pay £11k a year if the deciding factor was school trips, especially on your income level.

Well why not try living on one salary for a bit and see how it goes? you can spend the other salary squirrelling away savings/overpaying your mortgage?

I expect decent state + tuition + extra curricular activities + interesting holidays would be a better option though. It's pretty crappy scraping by indefinitely.

Just be prepared for the possibility of finances not stretching / redundancy / job loss / critical illness etc and you not being able to pay the fees.

You'll have to pull them out of the environment they've come to know and try and get them into a state school with spaces quickly - quite traumatic for them.

Have an exit strategy lined up.

it's not as simple as private = better.
take a good look at the private schools
take a good look at the state options open to you
take a good look at your children = ability, personality, talents

choose the school you think suits their needs best
THEN work out if you can afford it.

IMO you're coming at this completely the wrong way round.

I agree with Bluntness. Living perpetually on the edge will be stressful and affect your marriage and DC. If you have absolutely no room for any unexpected extras, you're going to get very stressed out when the boiler breaks down and you're in a freezing cold house with no way of paying for a new boiler.

I don't think it's worth asking what others did. It completely depends on how much you'd have left over after paying essentials - you need to include a contingency for one-off things like car breaking down, boiler going etc.

Work out how much disposable income you'd have a month after paying mortgage, school fees and essential bills (inc food). If it's a good few hundred then you can afford the fees but no luxuries. And hope that your pay goes up enough to counter-act any increase in fees.

Honestly, I think you will regret it. The sheer misery of having to buy second hand or budget clothes and food, of budgeting for entertainment, of living in fear of big bills coming in unexpectedly takes its toll on a marriage and will impact your children, as they compare themselves to others, and listening to your arguments and notice uour stress. The on paper argument and the reality of living every day like this for years is very different.

Personally as much as I understand your thoughts, I think you simply cannot afford it without some real sacrifices.

One option is to consider applying for scholarships and bursaries (means tested) which combined can theoretically cover up to 100% of school fees. Shop around as bursary thresholds vary considerably between schools, some being very generous. My children are on chorister/art/drama scholarships varying from 10 to 50% off school fees. Apart from uniform/sports kit, there are school meals, trips, clubs and music tuition as extras added to the term bill to consider.

Pp poster calculated op has £1400 pcm left after school fees and mortgage, and pronounced 'you can't live on that'. Of course you can. It's loads! I've not checked the figures that generated £1400 though. And by live, I don't mean eat out frequently, have exotic holidays and expensive hobbies. I mean cheap hobbies and cheap hols! And no security if one of you gets ill and can't pay the fees (but I've lived that, so might seem more real to me than most).

I wouldn't do it. If you want them to have the best chance, get them into the best state school you can and pay for extra tuition in either most subjects or the ones they need a boost with (or just really love)
Dsis had a 75% scholarship to private but the price of uniform, trips, extra curricular, etc was still astronomical.

Incidentally, I'm already putting plans in place to be able to afford a few years of private education if either of my children hate their comp! I won't be able to afford 5 years per child, but I'm aiming for 3 if they need it. This does not tally up with my own feelings that I would have valued having someone at home some evenings, so I'm experiencing cognitive dissonance about this.

Does depend what the age gap between your DC is though - if they're 3+ years apart, the overlap period when you'd be paying two lots of fees isn't huge. So with a bit of saving up whilst they're younger (testing out whether you really can live on the leftover salary) you might manage it.

I wouldn't, sorry. Depends where you live, but two sets if secondary fees would be nearer £36k pa round here, plus lunches, coach, clubs and trips. Plus nearly everyone I know supplements with extra tuition.

Why give yourself the extra worry?