If your kids go to private school how much do you earn?

[TimeDrainer]

Just curious. Dd1's school fees are 12000 a year and our combined annual net house hold income is about 120000. We also have Dd2 whose nursery fees are about 1100 and a mortgage of about 800 a month. We are in the North of England. I wonder how this compares to other parents who send their kids to private school.

Most parents at dd's school are consultant doctors and probably earn substantially more than us. No need for violins by the way. I know we are hugely privileged. I do worry sometimes whether we can afford it and that is probably my aibu.

(We made a snap decision to send DD to private school as she was so unhappy at her local school and back then we thought if we have some disposable income the most sensible thing to spend it on is DD's school If it makes her life a bit easier. ).

Plus the pay scale itself goes up to around £120k. Plus then clinical excellence awards etc

@prinnycessa £2k per month on mortgage. It went up by £300 when our fixed term ended. We put away £1500 a month for school fees.

Our take home post tax is about £8,500 a month. Mortgage £3,300, utilities, commuting, insurance, council tax etc about £1500, basic food shop £500, nanny £1,100, so that leaves us £2k a month for anything else – taking the kids out, kids clothes and haircuts, house maintenance, schools clubs, birthdays and Christmas, saving for two UK holidays a year. The only private school anywhere near us is £33k a year 😬

@PassP0rtquery definitely doable. Our current mortgage is £1k but we are planning to move back down south shortly but don't want to exceed £2.5k a month.

We don't have kids yet but would ideally like to send to private primary. Our salaries will increase in any event, I get a pay rise annually and a discretionary bonus and DH is a doctor so his will increase every couple of years until consultant when he will get a big jump. Thanks for sharing as it was very helpful

I mean, what's living 'like a king'? I've given my monthly breakdown above. The mortgage is super high because unfortunately we were in the unfortunate position of having to remortgage when all the rates were at their very worst last year – we went for a 2yr fixed, which is also the most expensive option, so as not to tie ourselves into a very high rate for any longer than necessary when we believed rates would come down by 2025 (fingers crossed). We are very thankful and privileged to have choices, and families with lower mortgage than this could live very well indeed.

I do not accept the line of 'you could but you choose not to) with the private school cost AT ALL. As I've said above, the only private school near us is £33k a year – so know, there is no way, for two kids, we could afford £5,500 a month out of our take home salary. If you happen to live near an £11k a year school fine – but not everyone does.

I'm curious how you know how much the parents at your school earn - do you ask or is it just a bit of guesswork from the sort of roles they are in?

I'm just interested as DC are at a major London private and I don't remember anyone asking our household income - I even remember thinking it a bit odd at the time, because how would they know we were good for the fees? I have a vague memory we may have given our jobs?

We didn't apply for a bursary, so they wouldn't have our income figues that way.

@prinnycessa just to add - this is for primary. My kids will go back to state sector for secondary as that is twice the cost and not achievable. Good luck with the move.

£115k a year and I think private school is just out of reach for our 2 DC. We could afford it for one but not both. It’s about £26k a year around here for 2 children at secondary level, and that’s without uniform, trips, all the extras. I wish we could do it but I’d hate to be in a position where they start and then we can no longer afford it and we have to pull them out.

Consultant doctors in this country earn £84 k. By the time it is 20 years later it eventually rises to £119k. Given that most are late thirties or early forties when starting a consultant job, they earn this amount for only a small number of years. Consultants are balloting to strike in May due to pay erosion of 40% .

im wondering who these doctors are that are affording all this! Because the numbers ( take home pay) don’t stack up at all and most doctors I know have kids in state schools, cannot afford private schools.

Yes just seen your breakdown and your mortgage is absolutely huge.

I think many higher earning doctors supplement with private work, especially surgeons. It's appalling how little doctors earn.

OH earns in the region of £140k, I am a SAHM. School fees are funded with an inheritance

Such bad luck 😩Hopefully two years of pain and then we can get out of it. Still couldn't afford the £5500 a month for two for our area on school fees though, even without that mortgage!

No, that is expensive. Ours is the same bit only boarding, day is much cheaper (24k instead of 37!)

On the other hand my brother in law's kids, who live about an hour away from us are only on £11k a year for their kids! It's such a huge range.

Combined income of 215k. Both DC privately educated m, one finished and in work and the other in senior school. We had a big gap (8yrs) which helped with costs. 7.5k a term.

When is the wedding?

I would normally expect grandparents to want to contribute so it is not just based on income. My mum offered to pay for private school for any kids I had but I turned her down since we can make do for now.

dh earns about £250,000k.
I earn almost nothing (living wage rate/hour)

This is an interesting thread. Our DC is still nursery age but we pay £1,200 a month for nursery. This time next year we’ll have 2 in nursery and that bill will be closer to £2,000.

Joint household income of around 70k. Though we’re late 20s so I expect it to keep rising for a good while.

Being able to manage the nursery fees and still have money left to save makes me think that we could afford one at private. The primary’s in our area are good but grammars for secondary. My hope is that atleast one of them gets into grammar and we could probably afford private for the other one.

I’m not arguing with you about consultants pay. Most of the parents at our school are doctors. If you’re a two consultant family with extras and private work and a fantastic pension you are doing more than alright in this neck of the woods.

Re the op who says about grandparent contribution why should they and if they have multiple grandchildren how is that even feasible for most? Certainly my parents who never earned more than £40k per annum in their lives and are now retired are not able to pay school fees.

im wondering who these doctors are that are affording all this! Because the numbers ( take home pay) don’t stack up at all and most doctors I know have kids in state schools, cannot afford private schools.

It depends what they're doing. Many consultants also see private patients and potential income varies hugely amongst medical fields (dermatology, dentistry and plastic surgery tend to be the highest).

DH is a private doctor with his own clinic that has a turnover of about 1.2 - 1.5M a year. Deducting all the costs it leaves about 300K gross income from him and 50K from me, so about 350K household.

We started DS at a state school with a good reputation but things didn't go well and we decided to switch to private. It was frustrating as we really wanted public to work out but there were so many issues cropping up that we felt it would be pointless to persevere when private was an affordable option.

40% of the parents in one of my DC class of 20 are doctors : all consultants (or private Harley st GPs). All doing a bit of private work on the side. The one doctor family I know well who don’t do private work (specialties where no private market in the UK) and have 4 DC private school fees to pay have help from the grandparents : retired doctors with healthy NHS pensions!

Household income is £108,000. School fees are £19 k. Sent first DC there because he has significant learning issues (requires both a reader and a scribe for exams etc. ADHD and ASD) and the SEN provision was fantastic. Second DC because seemed unfair to just send one. Lucky to have a small mortgage. We are not rolling in money after this and yes have made very deliberate sacrifices. Not alot of disposable income left after that tbh. If the proposed 20% increase on fees comes in we are screwed.

Our base joint income is 260k, usually rising to 320-350 per year with bonuses. We have one DD in private and two DSC in private high school.
DSC mum also contributes to school fees.
Greater London and we live in a modest 3 bed flat but travel lots.
For our DD school we are by far one of the lowest earners. Mostly bankers and lots of family money. Celebrities etc.
Its fine, but DD did mention that we everyone travels first class of by private plane…

DSC are in school until 5:30 most days and then do hours of homework every night and around 4 hours per day on the weekend. It’s intense.