Family income and private school - how much?

[Duckyneedsaclean]

Looking at options for secondary in a couple of years and don't know if we can afford private or not.

Can I ask how much your income is if your child is at private school?

I know this is absolutely ridiculous as we all have different expenses but just to get a feel.

The cost of private schools vary so much. I pay £12k pa for prep but have paid &16,500 in the past. The secondary schools here, day schools are about £20k pa yet a good private secondary day school in the NW can be as low as £12k pa. boarding is a whole other level of extortionate.

Ah, yes. We're in London, the ones we're looking at are approx 19-20pa

We sent our first to a private primary for a couple of years and found it very tight. I think at that point we were on about 60k or so. But primary is much cheaper than secondary. I might end up having to consider private for A levels for my first (but fingers crossed she gets good GCSEs and doesn't need it!). It will be more doable now for us financially but I hope it doesn't come to that.

Ours costs around £14.5k per year. Household income is around 90 -100k

Our son is at a private school in the South East, not London. £11k/year at primary rising to £18k or thereabouts for secondary. Activities, trips etc add a fair bit to that - and parents seem to compete a bit when it comes to birthday parties! So watch out for additional expenses when you do your maths.

Household income £180k. We did some maths and felt we could do it as long as we were above £100k joint income as we have a fair chunk of mortgage still to pay off etc etc.

Private primaries are not much more expensive than 50 weeks of full-time nursery which plenty of working parents afford (albeit sometimes with "free" hours").
But with school, you do need to plan (and pay) for what happens to the kids in the school holidays.

Southeast and fees are 16% of our net income. It might help you to compare what percentage of yours it will be. Gross means nothing because people can have very different tax situations/expenses.

Having looked into this the fees are just the tip of the iceberg. Lunches, trips, transport, exams etc can all add quite a bit.

It depends what other expense you have aswell as income - how big is your mortgage, do you have other children etc. Its a long commitment - 7 years each for primary and senior schools so unless you're happy for your child to have to change schools, I'd want to have a good pots of savings too incase of redundancy/illness.

If you're paying the fees from income, you'll need a very decent income indeed. The school fees for the school where I work, for a secondary school aged pupil, are over £20k per year for a day pupil. On top of that you have uniform, sports kit, outings and trips, extra curricular activities, ski trips, choir tours, sports tours, language tours etc. Best to set aside £30k per year.

London 8k a term secondary day.
(Trips etc on top)

If you're looking at £20K pa school fees, you'll need a spare £1.7K pcm net and that's for one child.

On the assumption, you'll need at least another £2.3K pcm to live on (family of 3/4) to pay mortgage/bills, etc - that's a minimum of £4K pcm net household income that you'll need. In reality, I think even that will be extremely tight because you will probably have to sacrifice/reduce your spend on other things like pension contributions, hobbies, holidays.

I would start investing/planning in advance for secondary school fees - either by a combination of overpaying your mortgage (offset for flexibility) in order to reduce your future monthly outgoings and pumping up your savings (ISAs) so you're not completely reliant on income to pay future school fees.

I have 2 DC at private school in London, currently in prep at £16k p.a. Next year DS moves into the Senior at £20k pa. Household income is c. £200k (bonus depending) and things are tight. We certainly couldn't do it on any less, especially when you add in the cost of lunches (£270 each, per term), uniform (£1k per set when you add in all the sets of sports kits), trips (£1k for the prep ski trip).

We have managed to save up most of the fees to send both DC all the way through to 18, (we're only about £30k short), which is comforting, as we are both vulnerable to redundancies in our sector (banking). Getting the fees in the bank has been a saving priority for us over the years.

20k a year is £1750 a month. Have you got that much to spare? Ideally, you should also have at least 20-40k set aside to start of with to make sure you’re in position to carry on paying even if going through temporary difficulties.

We’ll be going independent all through but we’re v well off.

North London independent school - we pay around £7k a term and then £500 for lunch (mandatory as no packed lunches allowed), £150 insurance and roughly another £600 two clubs per term. There's also additional cost of trips each term. The costs do spiral really do really spiral when you have more than one child.

Also forgot to mention the big deposit that need to be paid upon accepting a place. Usually around £6k and you only get it back when you leave the school.

20k a year is £1750 a month. Have you got that much to spare?

I would take this advice as your starting point. If you're a couple of years away from secondary I would try putting £2k away each month and see how you get on. If it's a real struggle you probably can't afford it for the next 5-7 years. If it's fine then you start to build up a buffer just in case you start private and your circumstances change.

Thanks all.

Our current income is approx 4k, although that should go up next year as DH will have finished all professional exams. I suppose the question is how much it will go up - at current income it would be very tight.

Can’t you just move near a very good state school?

I don’t think I’d be contemplating 140k+ on school fees in your position. I’d probably focus more on pension, saving for the child to help through uni and onto the property ladder etc.

Dd boarded on a bursary (80%) we earned £90k

@JoJoSM2 you're probably right.

DH grew up on a very shitty council estate, and went to private school on a 100% scholarship. He thinks that the opportunities that he has had are very much due to his schooling. So has a different view.

We can't move for various reasons.

If your net is 4K a month for both you then you might get a bursary. I'd try putting the fees away every month for 6 months and see how you do.

If you apply for bursaries and scholarships that may make it more affordable for you.

We earn 8k a month and are finding it right with one child at prep school (8k) a year.

However, we have a relatively large mortgage which doesn't help matters.

I don't think it's going to work if your monthly income is 4K

Tight, not right!

Well, if only an independent school will do, then you might be eligible for a bursary? If your child does well in exams, then some indies offer generous scholarships too.