Private school - how do you afford it?

We have four, and even with 2 of us on low 6 figure salaries, with mortgage, nursery fees, childcare costs, we realised 4x school fees wasn't doable without making life pretty tight and miserable. We moved out to Kent and (so far) have 3 in superselective grammars (from state primaries), whose results and extracurricular activities are on a par with the schools my privately educating friends pay for. We ski, go on foreign holidays, pay for a myriad of activities and opportunities for the children, which wouldn't have been doable if we were paying x 4 for private fees. I wouldn't screw yourself down financially if you don't have to. As someone upthread said, the pension increases are going to push fees way above the usual 10% a year, inflation busting rises.

But I would caution that school fees rise way above inflation. Thankfully in our last year of fees, but currently paying nearly £8.5k a term for a 'top' London indie.

Instead of moving and paying £100k in stamp duty could you move to an interest-only or offset mortgage deal for a few years? We did that on a fixed 5 year offset to give us some breathing space for school fees.

Older, either your mortgage or your fees must be lower than OPs then. She earns £130k which is £78k after tax. Less if she pays into a pension. £2500 per month mortgage, which is £30k per year. If she spends £40k per year on school fees (2 children) they have £8k a year to live on (food, bills, clothes, transport). Not doable.

You are looking at a decade in the private sector, six years with two children attending. It is a huge investment. We did not change cars, have expensive holidays etc. Do not forget the school trips, school uniform etc.

I am not sorry we did it, but it is a lot of money. Third son off to uni. next year for three years so we are still paying out for a while yet. The two oldest do have very good jobs, oldest running his own company now.

We are not too dissimilar in situation, we both have London jobs and we earn a touch more than you. We worked out that even it's still way cheaper to move even with moving costs, cosmetic redecoration, stamp duty legal costs etc. You are looking at 7 years of school fees at London prices. We have 2 and decided it wasn't fair just to send 1 to private school. So we went down the grammar school route ...padded the exam and swiftly moved into catchment legitimately and have put our investments into pensions, saving for Uni and property.

You may be running two houses, but on your salary alone you should still be able to afford it. DH earns similar to you, I don't work, we sent 2 x DD's private, and live in Surrey. Many of my friends are in similar salary brackets and send 2, 3 or 4 (!) kids to private school. You make your choice and have to cut your cloth. You have some savings which is useful, and believe me, we and our friends have all been out of work at times too, yes it is scary, but your can't predict what life will throw at you, and you may regret not going for it.

Knowing the extra info I’m leaning towards you going for it now.
But you need to account for it properly
What is your household income (with you and your new dh plus/minus any ex income or payments)?
What is your mortgage? What does new dh pay towards this?
What proportion of school fees would ex pay? Half isn’t fair given you earn more than him but it depends on what maintainance is already paid?

You are asking if you can afford it but you haven’t yet worked out income and cost of it properly yet as between the three of you.

And having two children rather than one; and a large mortgage. Different circumstances for everyone.

Yes BlueUggs (and others) but what the OP is saying is that the running of 2 homes is what is making it unaffordable.

Me and my oh earn just less than your exh between us. We send our DS to private school and have to make sacrifices to do so.

And many secondary schools do not have sibling priority at all. What was your plan? We're you always going to send them private but now have cold feet 're cost?

How old are your children now? Do they have school places (or applications in) for September?

I anticipate fees to increase significantly as in September 2019 the employers Teachers’ Pension contributions are increasing by 43%. This is a massive increase to one of the biggest costs faced by schools and will likely have to be passed on to parents in its entirety.

We have three in private and in London too. My OH is in a profession where he can do extra to make more money which he does. On your salary it is doable, we run an old car, go to family in the holidays and just budget. The other option if your DC are bright is to prep them for scholarship applications to reduce the costs or go for grammar. We do live near a sought after state however that’s a different thread altogether.......

Is ds in year 6? Sounds like you have left the whole state thing too late? We were in your situation with Dd3. Not willing to send her to the middle school where we lived as already put oldest ones through. Our options were private or move. We moved. We could have managed private as we had paid off the mortgage but really didn't want 10 more years of relentless treadmill. Dd is in year 6 in primary school. We moved during year 5 as deadline for secondary admission is Oct.
If ds is in year 6, you would need a miracle to get a good state place out of the usual admission round

OP - we afford it because it isn't a load of money to us, but having seen so many friends DCs do so well at very nice SW London comps I would not be prepared to make any sacrifice whatsoever to put DCs through private school. There are loads of excellent state schools in London and you must be very unlucky not to live near any of them. It's all very well to say move but stamp duty etc will cost you £100k and that's one set of fees paid for! So if your ex is prepared to pay half the school fees it will cost you no more to pay fees than to move house.

Are your state school choices really that bad? Schools can improve very quickly. Have you exhausted all your options?

What it means Redsky is that the 1.3m houses (probably terraced) are cheek by jowl with big estates. Half the children from the naice roads go to the state school and all the dc from the estate. Some of these schools are like a tale of two cities.

Appreciate that London is totally different to everywhere else but my mind is boggling that you live in an area where houses are worth 1.3 million and the state schools are dire. Is this because all the children from the local affluent families all go to private school? Or is your definition of "dire" different to mine?

Actually let's be very realistic. You have £40k for two years. Send him. You can fund ds1 from income and use that money for DC2 for two years. That gives you 4 years in current house. You will not be able to sell at value I imagine for 2/3 years until brexit storm is over.

We moved to an area with good state schools instead, and commuted for a few years (then found local jobs)

The commute was 5k a year, still cheaper than school fees for 2

And you pay for the "naice" school fees through house prices, but you pay London house rates already!

London state schools do better than anywhere else in the country. I wouldnt write them off.

Moving after 2 years would be bad. Too much change at that age.

Move house...best option.

Other option is to send them to the local school and pay for tutors and extra curriculum things.

The shittest secondary schools usually have something good about them.

Private for two years total bad idea. Forget that. Sibling place might never come. Iniquitous as well.

How committed is your ex to this? Might he have more children with new partner? It's difficult when you're relying on someone else like that? I guess worse case you can sell up and move if it becomes untenable. Does he know you have the cash saved. I'd be trying to pay for it out of your income and leave cash as buffer. Not mention it to him. Also are you sure school is worth it? Some privates aren't great. Will he get in?