to not understand how my friend can afford to send her daughter to private school?

[user1494078639]

Hi there ladies,

My first post here, but have been a member for a few months.

My friend went down the sperm donation route at 29. She had her daughter at 34. Her daughter is now 6... What I don't understand is she is at a private prep school, she also paid nursery fees, etc. without ever moaning to me, which is something a lot of us to talk about.

She did do a biology degree, but she has stayed in a lab role, so is only on around 30k.

She lives in a really nice newly built 2 bed flat (SE) and has a nice car :( recently gone on a Disney cruise! None of her family are about, I just don't get it.

We are on 56k joint income and really struggle, I know we have 2, but they are in state school, we struggle to go on a 'holiday of a lifetime' and it's always cornwall. maybe spain every few years.

I sound so jealous don't I!?

Honestly though, AIBU to not understand how she does it?

Here here Stealth and Lurked. I'm a single parent and have no input from anyone and we all do very ok thank you very much. Insulting to have people assume we must be supported somewhere along the line or be desolate.

Give the OP a break. She doesn't sound half as nasty as most of the posters...

Erm

Lots of reasons including:

She may have bought first property a long time ago so has done well out of price increases and paid off mortgage or has low mortgage.

Might be earning more than you think

Might have inherited money or has help from family members as there is no father involved (my mother would have probably paid me to have a baby as she was so desperate to be a gran!!!).

Might have second property that brings in an income.

Bumble but surely you have a sugar daddy? No?

Also guessing your friend earns more than you think or owns her house outright.

My friend had a baby with a married man and he pays her a lot of maintenance and their 'deal' is that she tells everybody the baby's father a sperm donor. I think he's a rotten individual, he wouldn't put his name on bc.

I do agree though, as a single parent, I have had people just assume I'm in receipt of some social welfare when my income was too much to qualify for any help. Couples on FIS are never judged. It's assumed I must be in receipt of assistence. That is a lazy assumption indeed.

Private prep might not be that much more than full time nursery fees...The DD might have a music/sport/etc scholarship...
If she's working in a lab her name might be on the patent for something and she'll get 'royalties' (not sure if it works like that!)
She could just be really sensible with money and not go out much...

All these are much more likely than her being a secret drug baron etc

Oldergolder...that's just good old fashioned sexism there are plenty of families with a SAHM and people first reaction tends to be that the DH earns well rather than they must be on benefits...

Yes you must have an amazing ex supporting you bumble. One idiot did ask a friend of mine if 'the social' paid dd's school fees because I was single, as dd couldn't possibly be of the standard for the school to offer financial assistance, because the entrance exam would have been too hard for even her dc.

user or just maybe she has better budgeting skills? I know I earn the same as one woman I know, and I know her husband is also in a similar bracket. Our homes and lifestyles look pretty similar so you could wonder why when they have double my income. But it's pretty simple. I shop around for everything, from holidays to shampoo, they don't. I tend to save up for expensive stuff, and buy the previous model second hand, they buy it on hp soon as they want it. Our cars are even about equal value, but 3/4 years ago theirs were more valuable and paid off monthly, mine was bought outright years earlier than theirs as an old model that is cheap to maintain. We eat out as a treat, they do it a lot. I make lunches, they buy it. And all that is why my money goes as far as theirs, not a secret cash source I have. But as she's both a nice person and intelligent, she is aware that this is where their money goes, and is quite happy with her choices rather than refusing to believe I just might spend differently.

Lurked, that sort of idiocy abounds

The lazy assumptions carelessly blurted out to my face.

I know someone - well spoken but in an. ordinary job. She has one child and the child's godfather (gay and loaded) pays for private school education. They also holiday all together at least once a year usually somewhere fancy as his treat.

Well that's a new one for the list. Rich gay friend.

Where can I find all these rich munificent gay people?

She might have just started saving young. I know many people who live very nicely on pretty average salaries, and it's because they spent their late teens and twenties working and saving every penny they could. Bought houses outright, and started putting what they were saving in rent/mortgage into things like private schooling, travel etc. whilst otherwise keeping up the budgeting and saving.

Unless you just get lucky, a lot of being comfortable comes down to how well you plan ahead. You can make a good salary, but if you wait til you're 15-20 years into your working life to think about saving or investing there'll be people earning much less doing better than you.

Ooooh...he doesn't pay private school fees, but I do have a friend who had a baby with a gay friend. He's not exactly a dad, not exactly a sperm donor, but somewhere in between.

He takes her and the child on holiday, gets extra cool presents for Xmas and birthday, and I guess if he was richer I could see him covering school fees he isn't that rich It seems to work well for both of them. I add that as the new solution. The 'sperm donor' is a gay millionaire who is still in the closet and so has to remain anonymous but always yearned for fatherhood and is watching over the OP's friend and their child from afar.

The OP's friend is actually hiding the Porsche he gave her. She keeps it in a garage down the road and only drives it at weekends.

I agree that saving early can have a significant impact. My husband and I both spent a prolonged time at uni, before we married. He saved much of his PhD stipend; we worked one year before moving to the UK and saved a lot, then continued in the same vein over here. The overseas money came over when we needed to move to a bigger house. Had we had 5 or 7 years both working here before starting a family rather than only 2, I suspect our savings would have supported school fees for 2 children very nicely. As it is we still have some savings that are helping as well as scholarships; I have not been able to earn properly much of the time since the youngest was born, though am finally turning that around.

How can you call an income of £56k a struggle?

I was thinking the same, tbh. It's bang on the national average salary x 2, so a lot more than an awful lot of people get. It may not go far if your paying London rent/house prices, but no-one forces people to stay in London.

Doesn't it just older. This particular person learnt the hard way not to comment to my face. However my favourite are those who share their nasty mail inspired opinions on single mums with you, without realising you are one because you don't match their stereotype.

My dad was a single parent who put a total of 5 DC, including two of my cousins, through private school. To this day I don't know how he managed it.

No one ever gave him a break and I remember a teacher telling me in class that my father wasn't a single parent because he wasn't poor. He was a single parent by every definition and struggled a lot with parenting alone.