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. ).

@TiredOfCleaning

As fees are rising quite fast year on year would you not be anyway?

Combined income of 80000ish. Two at private primary - we sent DS1 there because the state school he originally went to didn't cope well with his SEN, and then felt we couldn't not do the same for DS2. It pretty much uses my entire salary, so we live on DH's; mortgage is 1300 a month and we just about manage financially but things are very tight. No savings, no spare money for treats. DS2 went back after Easter and came home full of suggestions for future holiday destinations - maybe we could go the Maldives like so-and-so, or someone else had 'quite liked' their two weeks at Disneyworld but thought the hotel pool was a bit boring so 'when we go we should stay somewhere else'. At some point I'm going to have to break it to him that our summer holiday this year is going to be camping in a friend's garden 😂. I know we're very fortunate to be able to afford it all, and my salary goes up a bit each year which helps, but tbh I'm not sure it's the best decision we've ever made.

Combined income here of £250k and don’t expect to be able to afford to send 2 kids to private school in London unless we get a significant pay rise. I think I’d feel comfortable around the £300k mark.

We have a massive mortgage on a not especially nice house in a not especially nice area because neither of us have ever had anh help from family.

I think when some people say they can’t afford it they just mean they can’t afford it and have the lifestyle they want (which is fine). A lot of people afford £2k per month of nursery fees on much lower incomes. I pay this in childcare on a salary of £80k. But I would think at £120k gross it’s probably affordable but might mean compromise elsewhere.

It probably depends what your options for raising or earning more money are too. E.g I could work 5 days for £100k if I wanted which would almost pay a set of school fees.

Yes @Circe7 i guess you are right. On a take home of c£10k net we are currently paying £2.5k to our nanny, £1.5k on bills inc food and clothes, £2.5k on our mortgage and £2.5k on savings so c£1k left over which goes on holidays and presents etc. However we are about to double our mortgage so the savings will go.

In theory we could choose not to extend our house but we have outgrown it now. In future we won’t have the nanny expenses but we have 2 kids so couldn’t afford the £12k/term on the above income. And presumably fees will be even higher by the time we reach that point.

My DH is a consultant anaesthetic and our DC are at private school. He has a clinical excellence award which greatly increases his income, and also does private work 1 day a week.

We had a fee freeze over the covid period and they rose 5% this year. The Governors have committed to no more than 5% a year. The issue is if fees had the 20% VAT added all at once (without a corresponding rise in salaries)plus the expected annual rise on top of that. Every rise does indeed make us re-assess our finances. Neither child does any extra curriculars at all. Thank heavens we do not have a high mortgage otherwise we simply could not do it.

Very interesting. I'd say we live very comfortable with a net monthly take home pay of about £6.5k with around a £1k mortgage and I'd say we could afford it, but we wouldn't be prepared to go without other things to 'afford it' such as a couple of nice holidays a year, and trips/meals out etc.

My friend & her DH have a combined yearly income of about £90k gross with two kids in primary private school and they can't afford to do anything else! That's no way to live in my opinion but each to their own. It depends what the rest of your lifestyle is like as to whether you 'choose' to afford it I think...

Yes I agree with @Franxx68 . My preference would be to be able to access good state education and have good SEN provision for DS1 and to have money freed up for other things. I do get very envious of people who have really good holidays etc; go out alot. There is not alot of give in our budget at all. If I had a real choice (which currently I do not feel as if we do due to DS1's needs and the fact the school deal with him so brilliantly) then my choices would be different. I do feel like we are going without and certainly do feel like there are consequences to choosing a private school.

DH is one of 3 and his parents were really very well off. Three kids at a famous public school. But nothing outside that- no hobbies; no holidays nothing at all. He speaks of how envious they were of the neighbours' children who were at the local schools and had holidays and ponies and all that. He now says he sees the value in what his parents were doing for him and his siblings. I just hope we can have a happy medium somewhere. (This year I am hoping we might get a family holiday to the Channel Islands for example).

I'm not saying I need a violin played- but it is true that for alot of people choosing private means prioritising some things over others. I don't allow myself to think of what the fees cost in detail. It depresses me.

Our base income is £370k. It fluctuates depending on bonuses, when/if I work and from investments. We can and will afford to send all 4 DDs to PS from 4-18, and we have a savings pot to cover an amount of fees in emergencies/if circumstances change. We could manage on less, but obviously don't need to. The main thing to focus on is income stability.

2 DDs in nursery, 1 in school and 1 at home currently, so by the time our youngest reaches school age we'll be earning more and fees may have changed.

Our household income from earnings is about 400k (350/60). We've done a combination of state and private, depending on what is right for each child at the time.

However, we are also in a position to have other sources of income (investments) that fees could come from if our income went down. I would not be happy relying on earned income for school fees. I think that this is quite a common position to be in, and parents in less remunerative jobs often have another source of school fees (often the bank of granny and grandpa I suspect.)

I would be surprised, for example, if most of the doctors at your child's school are paying school fees from NHS wages. Remember doctors are often from wealthier families and might well have parents paying the fees, rental income etc. Certainly our two close 'two doctor' family friends, both have at least one partner from a wealthy family and considerable additional income from investments and/or property. Which is why they can afford to be doctors and have a great quality of life/ private school/lovely house in London.

Earn in excess of £300k between us and plenty of room for salary increases to come. That said, we stopped at 2 DC as felt that 3 or more would be a stretch financially, along with a chunky mortgage and other high outgoings. It's a trade off.

They are incredibly low fees for a private school @TimeDrainer I've not read all your posts but assume this is a prep school?

I'm a former teacher in a private school and the fees there now (a minor public school- not Harrow or Eton) are more than £12K a term.

When my DCs were 11+ age, we could have afforded to send one to an indy school- day pupil, around £25Kpa but not both. Joint income of around £120K.

Prep school fees in London are about £23k. We manage fine but the DC are talking about boarding school where fees are upward of £45k per year and we will still manage fine but it's the difference between 4 and 5 hols a year and a new car every 5 years than every 3. It's what many would deem a first world problem. If we earnt £120k between us, I wouldn't feel comfortable with London school fees because I wouldn't be prepared to sacrifice nice holidays and general "nice lifeness", especially when we have some of the top state schools in the country close by.

Take home pay about £200k. School fees about 12-14k per annum with extras - lunch and Bus. We live abroad and moved when DS was 11 so couldn't fit into the local Secondary school due to the language barrier. His school teaches the British GCSE and Bacalaurette system. It's a brilliant school and he's incredibly happy there

@Krystall could you explain why it could be an issue?
We are also in the north of England, combined salary 150k and it seems perfectly doable.
Our mortgage is around 135k and we could cover two years for both kids from savings.
Is there something I am missing?
This is for primary.
Would seriously appreciate your opinion.

A clinical excellence award is worth 3k per annum before tax, so that’s definitely not ‘greatly’ increasing income!

It’ll be the private work, which is akin to having second job.

@Lapland123 It’s £3K per annum for each Clinical Excellence point. DH’s is a bronze award so is an additional £30k per year gross.
But yes, the private work is his main income.

@hettiethehare

We had some research done a while back by an independent consultancy and some income questions were on there.

Additionally various parents and I have had chats about Tax Free childcare and them not being eligible.

Some is surmised as I can see from the work email signatures - big four partners, consultants in private practice plus multiple home addresses.

All the above plus our location means you’re looking at serious money, whether that’s assets or high income.

During the pandemic we had hardly any requests for assistance which was really surprising to me.

Agree, we earn that (no mortgage, v low tax and school fees approx £15k per year for two DC) and manage very easily. I’m surprised at some of the responses from higher earners than us suggesting they can’t!

Why are you surprised? You don’t have a mortgage. Most people do and in London it’s normal for people to be paying out £3-5k to live in an average terraced house.

Ah those are rare-national awards. I only know about 2 in my whole trust who have this. Well done to him. The private work is like having an extra job.

Around £150k but no mortgage and the school is only £12k per year

Combined income is around 180k before bonuses etc. We have 4 in private school, we get a discount on the youngest 2 fees because we have 4 there.

Including bonuses, we take home between 13-14k/month net. We don’t feel we could comfortably afford private for our three children… not without a lifestyle downgrade, anyway. Our kids are in a very good state state school and are thriving, so we see no point in shelling out for it unless something changes. We’d probably feel differently if one of our children had educational needs that weren’t being met or if the local provision wasn’t very good.

We use the extra money for things like family activities, travel, extracurriculars, etc. We also save a lot with a view to being able to help them with university and house deposits later on.

My friend whose husband makes in low 7 figures has her three in private, and they decided against having a fourth child because of the cost.