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.

But choices isn’t it, more than sacrifices? No one would say that the “sacrificed” holidays abroad in order to buy their second home in Cornwall. That would just be a choice/ preference as to how they spend their money.

We could all try giving up Sky TV too so we can afford school fees.

It's obvious that this thread is going to go:

Private school user: I go without x, y and z

Others: I can't afford x, y and z anyway

Interesting. This is already more than the OP is able to afford so she can't make those cuts as she already doesn't have an annual holiday abroad with cheap flights.

This is what I think the issue is. Some people feel they make great sacrifices for their fees. Other people already make those sacrifices just to live.

One thing that interests me is how working parents cope with the fact there's no legal requirement for Indy schools to teach for 38 weeks a yr as there is in state? It must make holidays chaos. I've just had to refuse leave for a colleague whose kid is in prep and whose kid starts holidays two weeks before the rest of the county. They are in absolute meltdown because there are no holiday schemes to send their kid to then. But the leaves allocation for those two weeks was already sorted months ago and I can't cancel other people's holidays which are already booked - they'll have to take it up with HR and request unpaid parental leave if they can't find cover. Even then we have discretion not to grant it. NHS MH so we're not overstaffed.

It's mad to me people would pay for a school that doesn't actually teach standard terms so covering holidays must be an absolute pain.

No one is saying that every family can afford private school with a few cutbacks. A lot of families could though. “Sacrificing” just means giving up something you could have otherwise had. Many families choose to spend money on schools rather than holidays and cars. Some families take the holiday and car option. No one is pleading poverty by saying they don’t go on holiday. It’s just a decision they’ve taken.

25% of those at private school are in households where the income is at a level equivalent to 2 people earning an average salary.

We drive a very old car which needs bodywork doing that I can't afford

We have a 2 up 2 down that I am going to have to remortgage

We don't go away for holidays - not even anywhere in UK this year

Dd is boarding, because she can't go to grammar locally & there are only sink schools so we agreed sending her to the best school she can get into makes it all make sense and more worth it - plus she is an only and enjoys being around others - this means I can also work but I do see it as a sacrifice (obviously want her to be at home and miss her terribly in the week) as a single parent we are very close

Can't afford to get anything fixed in the house - holes in the ceilings and leaks in roof - tbf no one will even turn up to quote at the moment

I have no savings left for myself or dd for the future because they are now all earmarked for the usual school increases and working out how much to remortgage for when we discover when VAT is happening and how much it will add - no future security any more where I would have had a couple of grand for emergencies/fixing the house - everything is on hold

I have health issues which I would like to have seen privately as there is a 3 month wait for specialist but can't prioritise for the above. Worry that health issues will get worse and I won't be able to work but can't now use them because of fear of VAT and not wanting interest on remortgage so using savings over loan seems more sensible

We are on the edge financially but I was feeling it was just manageable until the extra 10k pa has come in as possible this year with VAT - so remortgage it is after years of paying off. So I guess you can add Labour is reversing me being a homeowner which is mentally draining when they aren't even elected yet!

In our area the holiday clubs cover their private school holidays and our school also puts some on. Mostly though, people take their holidays when the state schools are still in because it’s cheaper and there’s more availability.

But if you can afford something and choose not to buy it in order to buy something else then it is a sacrifice. Is everyone supposed to just pretend that they don’t earn more money to make you feel better about yourself?

25% of those at private school are in households where the income is at a level equivalent to 2 people earning an average salary.

Where is this statistic from?

The definition of sacrifice according to google is “to give up (something valued) for the sake of other considerations” so no, sacrifice is the correct term.

The sacrifice tends to be not living to the standard they envisioned on their salary yet still living more comfortably than many others.

we have friends who are in this position, earn similar to us and holidays are while state schools are still in and nothing extravagant (but still a holiday). They have a massive house but that’s due to inheritance, otherwise they’d still be living in a nice but more standard house.

DS is starting in August and DD will follow 5 years later. Upper primary/secondary years only. I don't use the term 'sacrifice' for us personally as I accept that even with school fees our life looks a lot better than many others. But we earn a similar amount to our peer group who aren't choosing to pay school fees so I can see how it will look different lifestyle-wise.

• staying in our existing home which meets our needs but could otherwise afford to upsize. Our home is smaller than a lot of our peer group.
• one car - not flashy at all
• buy and sell on Vinted
• strict food budget (meal planning etc)
• school uniform all bought from thrift shop
• we can still holiday but definitely not things like Disney. £10k hols out of the question.
• manage every £1 of income through spreadsheets/ various different accounts etc

I appreciate the above is just what most people do but I guess for us, our peer group without school fees are dual car families, big houses, Disney hols etc. Not sacrifices for us, just different lifestyle choices.

The IFS

I change my answer. We don’t make any sacrifices. We just spend our available resources a certain way.

Everyone budgets differently. We have a small house with no mortgage rather than the fancier house + car we could afford without school fees. The word “sacrifice” is not really appropriate - that’s just how we spend our money.

You wouldn’t say another family “sacrifices” private school to have an enormous house, or the latest, biggest Tesla and family holidays to the Maldives every year, when that obviously costs more than school fees.

Also have to laugh at the We will have to have a car that us MORE THAN 4 YEARS OLD!!! Imagine

A lot of private schools provide holiday clubs. Our prep school had clubs which covered almost every single week of holidays (I think there was only 1 week at Christmas and 1 week in the summer where no club was available).

But in most public sector jobs that's not how leave works especially in summer. You put in an application for dates in July/August and cross your fingers you get the ones you want before you book anything. I always prioritize colleagues with kids for school holiday dates. Because we're in an area with no indies this is the first time this has happened. Colleague moved their child to an Indy in a city some miles away, then realized they had no holiday cover and requested it but obviously it's already been granted to child free colleagues who have holidays booked. School has nothing on.

Obviously in areas with lots of indies this is different but you're still paying for two extra weeks childcare a yr on top of fees, and fewer options for childcare swaps cos kids are more spread out, plus households aren't running cars so can't get kids to friends houses.

If I had to rely on getting my leave those two weeks in July I would have a heart attack. Plus we would not have access to six weeks of play schemes, there were usually odd weeks of sports clubs, cub and scout camp plus child care swaps to get us through till September. The though of 8weeks makes me come out in a cold sweat!

Sacrifice is an emotive word. It implies giving up something of great value for the greater good. Drriving an older car isnt really materially different than driving a new one. My car is old. It's great.

But I think its fair to say a lot of parents make choices on their discretionary spending to send their child to independent school that other parents in similar financial circumstances don't make.

Just as it's true that most people have no choices to make. 25% of state school pupils on free school meals now.

Do you have a link?

It certainly is a pain - not one that bothers us too much as we used state primary so by the time we were having private school term dates DC old enough to look after themselves while we WFH in those 2 weeks. But I'm surprised there isn't at least one private school offering holiday clubs during private school holiday times. There's 6 private schools within reach of us and 3 of them have holiday clubs which include the gap between private and state school term dates.

Our children are getting roighly the same amount of time in school as a state school pupil despite shorter terms. The state school our DC would otherwise have gone to has school days of 9 till 3:15 on 4 days a week and 9 till 12:30 on fridays for 190 days a year so 1083 hours in school. Ours are 8:30 till 4pm 5 days a week on about 175 days a year so which is actually around 1300 hours in school (I think we have longer lunchbreaks which will probably bring it down to about the same in actual lessons). But even if it was a slightly lower total the fact that close to 100% of lesson time is actually learning rather than crowd-control/behaviour management must make some difference!

It's probably made up but everyone on this thread can check here. Our two income, three kid household with a joint income of £88k and housing costs of £600pcm (which is v low) is in the 72nd centile..and there's no way those two standard salaries could pay Indy fees for three kids which wd come to.minimum £60k a yr.

Unless the sacrifice we're talking is one of the kids which is generally frowned upon...

Whats normal depends on your family and peer group though.. I have older clients who genuinely consider themselves quite poor because their estate is only £1m. If your friends and peers all have £5m plus it probably feels like that!

Most parents at our school work in the private sector and many are self employed so a lot more flexibility re holidays. Also I find in my team most parents want leave during state school holidays and most people with no kids in school definitely don’t want leave when there are any school holidays! So the weeks that private schools are out and state schools aren’t are only wanted by the private school parents.

I think there is often a lot more to it than just having a holiday every 3 years and an old car.

firstly, it’s not just myself and my DH who are making sacrifices. We are lucky enough to have both sets of grandparents alive. All 4 of whom earn a good income into their 70’s. They could choose to retire and spend the money on cruises etc. they don’t - they pay our kids school fees. They see it as building generational wealth. They are also asset building in order to pass on to us. We also see it as our duty to pass on more to our kids than we’ve inherited. Hence we both work and we don’t have fancy things.

Neither set of grandparents came from wealth. In fact both came from working class families who did their best to leave their kids with a tiny bit more than they had.

it also come down to choices. We had kids in our mid thirties. We chose to save up and buy a caravan pre kids so all holidays now are in that. Some kids at my kids school have 10k hols twice a year and fancy Teslas. We don’t do any of that. However, they are not sacrificies that most people can choose to make. We employ a few staff and on a day to day basis we live on what we pay them. So they tend to have a week in a van by the sea annually or sometimes a cheap trip abroad every other year. so that’s what we do. The only thing different is the school fees and unless they had family help even with sacrifices it wouldn’t touch the sides of what private school needs for 2. The small difference would be you could maybe afford to out one child through a 12k cheapie private school with two parents working in some areas with the right choices.

The other thing that doesn’t get mentioned is a lot of private school parents run their own business. In our business world we don’t massively invest in the business in the school fee years or the car home years. Traditionally you have 10 years of paying the care home fees,
gap to invest, 11 years of school fees gap to invest and on you go. Bit of an issue if care home and school fees clash!