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.

There is a promotion looming actually! Will probably take us up to 250k but even then I still think it's a stretch. Not willing to watch every penny on food and week end activities when we have a choice. And our quality of life, mine and DH's counts for something too. I'd like to be able to afford a trip to the hairdressers etc without worrying about the cost for example.

His main argument, and I can't fight these facts, is that 50% of Oxbridge entrants are privately educated. That's vs 7% of children privately educated.

For me it is
Class sizes
Range of activities in school means I don't have to ferry them around to these things at the end of a long working day for me (in fact they would probably not make it to half their sessions tbh)
Longer day suits me as a working parent
Longer holidays suit me as I get 10 weeks hol a year so it's nice to spend it together with kids
I like the fact I am a customer buying a service so if I have a problem it gets resolved super quickly and easily
I like that I can choose the right prep school for my kids and send them there - no catchments no applications blah blah
Ditto I know I can keep siblings together at the same junior school
For me senior only private wouldn't work because of disparity in holiday dates
I that's it really. It works for me.

Talking peace you are silly. Why do you assume it is the men who earn all the cash?!

And you certainly shouldn't need tutors at the best London day schools if the DC are bright enough to get in in the first place. That sort of mentality is a recipe for disaster for the DCs. If they can't hack it without the tutor they would be happier at a lower tier school.

His main argument is wrong. The numbers are entirely different at sixth form where there are a lot of transfers into private.

Also, would you like to ask him where the cash is actually coming from? I find this argument goes down like a bucket of cold water, but if you can't afford it, you can't afford it!

Wuldric 3 now but would love one more. I couldn't let the private school cost be the deciding factor in whether to have another child. I just think that's fundamentally wrong.

If private is so essential to you/your dh could you sell up & move to a cheaper property to fund it.
Its all about what you feel is the priority

And what if he spends all that and your DC aren't Oxbridge or even Russell Group calibre? You have to go with the child and support the child not the ambition for the child.

This thread is mesmerising. I'd love to know what you do for a living to earn these salaries! It's too late for me to change careers, but it might help me to guide DS as he grows up :)

I think you need to have a sit down and a good long chat with your DH about your respective priorities OP.

bitter experience of the over remunerated wags at my gym
and the fact that only on MN is private school considered normal
as are families of more than two kids

good luck to those click who think I'm odd
luff y'all

Morris I bet it is the usual suspects - entrepreneurs, law, banking, accountancy, management consultancy. Maybe the odd medic with a good private practice?

I could be wrong and everyone here is someone like Kate Winslet or lily Allen though

Class sizes for us isn't such a difference -30 state vs 22 private. I hadn't thought of the disparity in school holidays as they get older. Glad you pointed that out. Could be worked around though.

It can be worked around but the ones at state schools don't half get upset that their Easter/Xmas/summer hol is a fortnight shorter than their siblings!

He is in law, and I agree that they may not all want a career! Or even further education!

Very sorry about our household income talkinpeace - thank you, have seen the light and will be donating all our worldly goods to charity as of tomorrow

It might be doable, but it would be pretty painful and would you be able to maintain it for all 4 all the way through?

We make more than that and have 2 kids, our two are going state but if we deem private a necessity it won't be a problem.

However, that is 2 kids (with a good gap between them).

Don't forget it isn't just the fees, it is the uniforms and the kits, and the trips and all the extras.

In your situation I would move into the catchment area for good state schools and indeed that is exactly what we did - we also have the choice of 2 private schools and one selective boys school along with the local excellent high school.

Personally I think this was a better use of the money.

Could get around that by putting the older ones to work for me while the younger ones are still at school :)

See, all those professions sound boring as shit. If somebody had said 'managent consultancy' to my young adult self I'd have choked on my alcopop in derision.

But these people are earning shedloads, and presumably really enjoy their careers. God damn my hippy parents and their total lack of interest in my future salary. Study sociology they said, learn about people they said...

Disparity in school holidays is fine. You just explain that the ones at private start half hour earlier and finish half an hour later and over the year it all works out. Especially if the indy ones are in A/B teams and expected to be at school every Saturday for at least half a day.

We are next to an excellent state school and our eldest will probably be offered a place in the next couple of school years. We live 300m away and not the 100m you need to be to actually get a place in reception! But if eldest DC does get offered then it would pave the way for the younger ones to get in.

DH had hippy parents though and decided he didn't want to grow up anything like as disorganised . Well a hippy mother at least . The girls did though and they are sadly always skint and always on the tap.

Come back down to earth and do the maths. Look at the numbers. Pick the nearest independent prep to you. You will find out that if you wear lots of jumpers you might just be able to afford it. Then look at the secondary school fees. Your eyes will water. Then look at the sixth form fees. Your eyes will be creating a mini-lake. Then the killer is, thinking about funding their university fees. We're talking oceans now.

It seriously is an awful lot of money. You are not engaging with the numbers properly right now. You have to do that.