Okay… so what exactly are the sacrifices made for a private school eduction (feel free to scroll past if you don’t want to read another public school one 😉)

[vote4whoeveryouwant]

Yes, know another private school one. But I keep reading about people making huge sacrifices so their children can go to private school but I’d be genuinely interested to know what these are?

I earn pretty well but we only holiday alternate years, don’t have a car and haven’t done anything to our decrepit house for years simply because we don’t have enough leftover after outgoings and all the boring stuff.

My DD has dyslexia and we did look into private school for her as she really struggles but it no matter what way we tried to rework our finances there was no way we could make it work.

For us, we never buy a new car.
Always 3 plus years old.
We try to do as much home maintenance as we can ourselves, lots of half working appliances and garden we don't have time to work on.
We have a savings account called Schhol which is the only savings account. We both work full time so put something in every month.
Also, for holidays we always do house swaps abroad. Try to book flights first by finding cheapest location for our dates, then arrange house swap, this needs some planning!

For us, it's a mix of driving older and not very fancy cars, and not being able to do work on our old house that we should really be prioritising. But we don't have to sacrifice much right now.

SIL and BIL only holiday in the UK and don’t replace their cars.

It always baffles me when people say they earn well and then go on to explain how frugally they have to live. I think peoples ideas of earning well is what causes a lot of debate on these threads.

Not every one makes sacrifices as they are so wealthy, some people choose to live in smaller houses, keep old cars don’t go holiday. Some kids are there because their grandparents pay for them.

I drive a MG, modest house and one holiday a year. I don’t think I sacrifice anything because I never had much growing up. I grew up on a council estate so the people I grew up with think I’m wadded. But there are people at the school in million pound houses and drive Bentleys. One of the kids in my dds class - her dad buys and sells aeroplanes and they live in a mansion.

There is a huge spectrum of ‘wealth’ at private schools.

My DC are not in private school but I don’t think you can be so naive OP as to truly not realise what sacrifices some people make to send their DC to private school.

The cheapest one near us is 12k per year (not including all of the extras), if we wanted to send both of our children we could but it would take sacrifices, maybe going to just one car and getting an older and cheaper one, only doing one cheap holiday per year, not having gym memberships, not doing any of the repair work on our house, not having any savings, hardly ever eating out, DS not doing his expensive sports, DD not doing horse riding. I don’t want to have to cut back that much, even though I would love the DC to have a private education.

Obviously some people are super wealthy don’t have to make any sacrifices but from my experience a lot of people who go to private schools are from ‘normal’ families who make sacrifices in terms of how they could live if they didn’t choose that for their DC.

It wouldn't be possible for us as to send two children to the only private school round here would be 75% of our monthly income. Our mortgage and bills are more than 25% of it, and then we have to eat too. I guess we could send one if we didn't run a car and had no holidays and treats. Even if we did all that and moved to a tiny flat I don't think we could send both.

I went without (not DS) and cut back as much as possible. I didn't earn alot but I had a much older car (that was reliable and inexpensive), a very small house (that I loved), sold things (back when it was worth while on eBay) and generally kept a tight rein on money. We had one holiday a year. My DGM helped a little. I was used to paying for childcare during the holidays so that all went towards fees. I think sheer bloody mindedness kept me going! It was so hard though and I don't know how I did it!

We were fortunate that my DS had a small bursary and the uniform was very generic so I bought it at supermarkets apart from the sports kit. But it's not just fees as he went on overseas school trips and had lunches at school.

At my DSs school there were quite a few parents like me, some that were wealthy (one family had a helipad and another family had all 8 DC at private school) and some where the DM had gone to work (I assume they were SAHMs) to pay for it. His friends were in similar situations and one was very wealthy. They all used to pile into ours most weekends!

I'm proud I was able to do it for him.

Yes I can see how it varies also one person’s (me in this case) opinion on what a good wage is, is vastly different to what someone else’s opinion is.

My friend’s DC goes to a local private school, his DC has a small bursary and then rest of fees paid by his parents. They’re lovely people and most definitely would probably put themselves in the ‘normal people’ category but I’d argue that most people normal people don’t have parents who are able to pay school fees (although there seem to be a lot of here).

The life with sacrifices that are being described sound like normal life for huge numbers of people.

If it was thought of as being normal life to live the "life with sacrifices" then it would be easier to see how private school is a luxury, in the same way that some people spend their above average earnings on fancier holidays or a bigger house.

I understand that for some people with children with additional needs it feels like a necessity, but there are many children with similar needs who don't have the option

We sent one of our DC to a private school for a couple of years and were in the fortunate position to be able to afford it from income/savings without having to really change anything else.
However, for most of the people at his primary school, even considering a private school wasn't even an option. They're already driving old cars, not going on holiday or only going on holiday to visit friends in other parts of the UK, socialising in their homes or somewhere like the local park rather than going to the pub or a coffee shop, living with various issues in their homes or broken appliances until they can save to sort it out and that sort of stuff as they have to make these choices to put food on the table and pay the bills. This is their day to day normality. Not what they do to in order to be able to spend several thousand pounds a year on school fees.
It also baffles me on these threads when those paying school fees say that it's not just school fees but the trips as well. Do they not realise that thousands of children in state schools aren't going on school trips as their parents can't afford it? Of the cost of the school trip would mean that they can't hire a caravan for a week in a May HT which would be their annual holiday?
I think we live in such a consumerist society which is fuelled by social media that many feel that they are going without if they don't have gym memberships or their lashes done or regularly get takeaway or eat out but that is normal for so many.

Someone I knew who was a single parent lived in one of the grimmest bits of a city in awful housing. She rarely did anything but work. He is an adult now and the last I knew he was unemployed.

Other friends had two daughters they moved from our suburb further out, it was and still is a nice area they moved to. They sacrificed holidays but also put up with his Mothers behaviour because his parents paid half the school fees throughout the entire children’s schooling. One DD is now a science teacher in a state school and the other is just about to go off to University. They are really lovely girls, you wouldn’t have a clue they had received a private education none of the extra polish people go on about.

Tiny house, no car, no luxuries, accepting family help (that might otherwise go on fancy holidays etc., I suppose). There are some slightly scary repairs out house needs but they will just have to wait till after the a-levels.

I don’t particularly object to the VAT - the country is so poor because the stories have been trimming away at taxes for years with zero regard to what a functioning infrastructure costs. We NEED to pay more tax to have the country we want, and I would very much like my children to have high quality state schools to choose from for their children, not have to pay a billion pounds for private.

Ritually sacrifice the GP for an early inheritance.

Mum died and left me the money.

@whynosummer I’d happily pay more income tax too to have a better state education system, although I do actually think it’s good anyway.

For those mentioning trips at private schools are these included or extra?

Some of these posts are a bit cringe. The idea that only having one holiday a year or not buying a car that isn't at least 3 years old are "sacrifices" just reflects how incredibly out of touch some people are with how most people live.

We has one battered elderly car, very cheapest UK holidays or none at all. Nothing new that could be avoided. I went back to work full time doing horrible shifts. When all else failed we borrowed extra on the mortgage to do any essential things to the house. Then we moved to a much less nice area. It sounds pretty grim now I say it but it's still been the best spent money I ever earned, I don't grudge it. Fees were no where near as high then but it was still hard. However we are now stuck in the less nice area although mortgage free. We could really do with a bungalow but highly unlikely to be able to move. Had we moved upmarket to an area with really good state schools, life would be different now

@Shortfatsuit i have to say i agree on this, these things are huge luxuries to many people and ones they don’t have to sacrifice.

We live in the dodgiest area of town, kids don't do any extra-curricular clubs, holiday every 3-4 yrs, minimal spending on Xmas/birthdays/food/haircuts/days out.

Usually extra although the school we used were really careful with costs and gave you masses of notice

Old car, self catering holidays in UK, didn’t decorate house, DH took a Saturday job. Friends re-mortgaged their house to pay the fees. Only one other boy from his class in Primary went to private school. DC did without too - fewer clothes, no designer stuff, couldn’t keep up with friends. But it was worth every penny.

I think “choices” is a better word than “sacrifices”. Not going on holiday, driving an old car etc- very common choices. I doubt there are many parents going to bed hungry to send their child to private school.

OTOH I think there are posters who assume that if you can afford private school fees you can easily afford fees + 20% and that certainly isn’t true.

Re VAT on school fees. Many private schools are charities. Charities don't pay VAT. How's that going to work as a revenue earner?

What do you even mean when you way "charities don't pay VAT"?

This isn't true, and it has nothing to do with the VAT policy.