To ask your household income with 3-4 DC in private school?

[Lemoning]

And are you comfortably living, affording savings and holidays and not worrying about money? Pre tax income, and obviously including the school fees in your outgoings, ie: they're not paid by GP or similar.

I sometimes wonder if we're going to regret starting down the private school road because of money worries later on. Our income pre tax is about £200k.

It depends on your other outgoings tbh. So is there any cost to housing (such as rent or mortgages) and what is your pension provision like?

If you have to pay for housing and pensions, then you would really struggle with 3/4 DC in independent schools. It's just about doable (assuming two earners, rather than one) but you would have to economise on cars and holidays.

Not really your target demographic but we are possibly considering private school for our only child in 2ndry school some years down the line. There's always the possibility of falling on hard times but worst case scenario is you transfer the kids to a state school, and maybe get a tutor to cover for its shortcomings.

We are 60% paid off on our house and currently contributing 6k to pensions a year for us both. In retirement we could downsize our house and buy something for half the value though and save the rest.

Mortgage currently £4k but we are overpaying.

Good point that the worst case scenario is state school. Not that bad! DH is hellbent on private all the way through having had the same. I was state all the way through and feel state would be fine!

Anyone else?

What part of the country are you in, OP?

We are south-east with similar income and have decided we can't "afford" private with two DCs, let alone more.

I think it depends how important it is to you. If it isn't that important (ie, it would be nice to have, but only if it doesn't impact your way of life at all) then I suspect you should probably not - because fees do add up.

On the other hand, we have a combined income of about 40K and send 2 children to a small local prep school (with a generous bursary, it must be said). And it is really hard, worrying about fees and all, but it IS worth it.

I reckon that with two earners then a family income of £200k a year is around £10k a month net. Give or take. If your mortgage is £4k then you absolutely definitely cannot afford independent school for 3 or 4 kids. Not doable. Look into state grammars, tutoring etc.

We are in London. DH thinks that if they don't do private primary we'll scupper their chances of getting into private secondary. I am happy to do state primary and private secondary.

I read with them every night, do lots of activities and take them to museums etc so feel I could make up for anything lacking in state school.

I want them to mix with other cultures and social groups too. It's important to me and I think it's a life skill to be learned early on.

Oakmaiden, can I ask specifically why it's worth it for you? What are your state options like?

I keep showing DH spreadsheets but he just keeps banging on about how his earning will go up.

What shortcomings are you referring to? Are you aware that teachers in state and private are equally qualified, although state are better regulated thanks to the local authority.

From an outstanding teacher who wouldn't dream of leaving the state education sector.

We have 4 in private schools, 2 senior 2 junior. Comfortably affordable for us with lots of holidays yadda yadda but our joint income is a good few multiples of yours.
Agree it depends on your outgoings but if our income was only £200k (and I use the word only v loosely!!) I would think twice about going fully private 5-18 with 4 kids. It sounds tight to me. At the moment including cello lessons and extras and school trips it costs us pretty much £20k per term so that's £60k of your £100k post tax income gone before you pay the mortgage or eat a sausage or buy enormous numbers of school shoes.

I don't think you can afford it.

It doesn't really matter what your income is if you can meet your outgoings. That's the important thing. Just do a spreadsheet and estimate the costs and remember costs of school fees will go up and up and up.

Private school fees comfortable for us currently but only one child private - could be two children in around 18 months time which should also be fine. I would baulk a bit at funding 4 - our household income is more than 200k

Have just seen your 4k mortgage. Not doable. Yes you are overpaying but rates will probably go up in the next 18 months. If you have a good state primary nearby then thank The Lord and go for it. You will save an insane amount of money.
Btw I'm in south east but not London so you can add at least 10-15% to my school fees to get to London rates...

Lacking in terms of sports on offer, things like languages from reception year. Not the teaching but the extra curricula and also wider curriculum, private schools are not bound to.

Where we live, it's about 10k per annum per child, and discounts for siblings only about 10%. So unless you have a tiny or no mortgage, on £200k gross you will struggle if you have 3-4 children to privately educate.

London is excellent for access to those things outside of school. I'd give your DCs the chance to mix with the wealth of people that live in London

Overfacebook - state school teachers are often exceptional, committed etc but a class of 32 (my ds in ofsted rated outstanding school) versus a class of 11 (yes 11!) in my dd's private school, there is no contest imho

You need to think about how to afford private secondary. How will that happen? Will you have paid off the mortgage? Your pension contributions are very low (unless you are in public sector final salary schemes). What are you going to do about those? Are your DCs musical or highly academic and can benefit from scholarships? What are you planning to do for university? Your DCs might benefit more from you funding their fees at university if it is an either independent school or funding university thing.

Not bound to the national curriculum I meant to say. But I don't really want to debate private vs state on this thread, as mentioned I would be happy with state.

We have an outstanding state primary near us but DC would probably not get a place until year 3 or 4 from waiting list. It's oversubscribed.

Probably sensible not to get into that debate!