We can’t afford to live anymore

[ThatNavyPoster]

Private school fees are killing me.

We can’t afford to live anymore. I don’t know what to do. On paper my husband and I make good money, but for the past year we’ve been drowning financially.

We send our daughter to a private school. She was attending the local village school from reception to year 3, she was the only brown child in her school. Some of the older children were calling her the P word (we are not from Pakistani, not that it would be excusable if we were) and some children in her class were making comments about her skin colour and curly hair. Our daughter had been very withdrawn the whole of year 2 and 3, we put it down to post Covid disruption.

We did not expect this, my husband and his family have been in this village forever, generations are buried in the village church. Im brown, I was born in this country and so was my Mum.

We had no idea of the bullying until I picked our daughter up from school and she had cut her hair and coloured her hands with pink pen. She said she didn’t want to have curly hair or brown skin. We tried to work with the school to address the bullying, it continued all through year 3, she was becoming so distressed and started refusing to go to school.

For year 4 we moved her to a school a 45 min drive away, in a bigger town, hoping it would be more diverse. The drive was costing us £400 in petrol a month, plus £450 in wrap around care. My husband and I considered moving, he has been in the village his whole life, he has siblings and nieces/nephews here, we were helping provide care for his elderly grandparents, despite this, he agreed to move closer to the new school. Then the bullying with the p word started again, my daughter was told “go back to your country”.

We moved her to the private school 30 mins drive from our house at the beginning of year 5, she was a different child almost overnight. It’s more ethnically diverse than either of the 2 state schools, there has been no racist bullying and she has some lovely friends. She’s now in year 7. In order to afford it we don’t eat out or go on holiday, we drive a 15 year old car and rent an EV through work. We rent out our granny annexe.

We have decent paying jobs in the NHS, but we’re drowning, over the past year our outgoings have increased by close to £1000/ month due to energy price increases (we’re on LPG oil due to being in the countryside), food price rises, petrol, vat on school fees/school fee rises. We can’t afford to live anymore.

The autumn budget tax rises will finish us off by the time they are all implemented. We are not eligible for any benefits except tax free childcare. We are not eligible for any business and the school doesn’t do scholarships. The only thing left to cut is the school fees, and I am coming to the realisation that my daughter will have to go back into the system that made her hate herself because of the colour of her skin. That thought is killing me, but the school fees are killing me. I can’t see a way out.

The only thing left to cut is the school fees

How much is your mortgage/other bills?

If you moved to a small flat, could you manage then?

It sounds like alike you can't afford your current situation, so either private school or the house needs to change. I'm presuming you both already work full time?

You can't say there is no racism there, any more than you can say there is no racism in England. My friend's family experienced it. A lot.

100% this. ^ YABVU @ThatNavyPoster

This is exactly my thoughts. Find a big state secondary that’s likely to be more diverse. Most towns would be more diverse I would have thought?

I'd say I'm fairly well situated to talk about it.

No. It should read "Three schools in, I can't afford to keep my child in a school where her mental health is not being damaged by racism".

There are no 100% white areas in London and asking such questions to an obviously British born person is both ridiculous and racist (not that it would be OK to ask that a non-British born).

Many friends now consider relocation, including families with mixed children, but India is not even their "home country", it would be a proper emigration they never wanted to do.

Have you looked at the secondary schools
locally? Only reason I ask is going from a small primary to a large secondary tends to mean they are more diverse.

I am so sorry OP that is is something you even need to consider. It’s awful and I would be disappointed if my child ever made comments like yours is experiencing.

(insert ethnicity as appropriate)

Stupid is you...

Bit of an odd thread, given the title concerns the cost of living - for a discretionary expense such as PS fees, but then includes allegations of racism and bullying.

In your situation I'd move heaven and earth to keep her there. Can either of you take on a second job? Pick up bank work, consult privately etc? Worse case can you sell up and move to a two bedroom flat? A child that is happy and settled in school is priceless and would take priority over housing for me.

So sorry to hear about your experiences. I would not want to live somewhere so backward and suggest moving. I live in a small city and it's extremely diverse in many ways - racially, family set up (LGBTQ families), socio economically etc.

You think I’m stupid, yet you think all the white british kids were being subjected to racism. Or you’re calling me a racist.

I don’t doubt racist bullying goes on but I’ve had 4 mixed dc go through 2 schools in a semi rural/small town area with no significant issues. Thoughtless remarks and stereotyping - yes - racist bullying - no. Racist bullying to the point of self exclusion is the exception rather than the rule and you have been staggeringly unlucky with your choice of schools. Private schools are not a bastion of tolerance and inclusion.

You can’t afford private school. She will need to move.
It sounds like your area isn’t providing the lifestyle you want, it’s not diverse enough and housing is too expensive. You are living in a too big house (granny annex!) that you can’t afford to heat.

if I were you I would take out a map and look at places within a 90 minute drive. Find the hospitals - if there are more than one choice look at them carefully. Look at housing options within 30 minutes commute of the hospitals in the direction of your DHs family. You want to target anywhere that has a reasonable commute both to a workplace and for your dh to come back to support his elderly relatives. Are there any decent sized towns in this circle? Anywhere where you can settle with more diverse neighbourhoods and good schools where you can afford to live? Is so target those trusts for jobs. Visit the areas, go to the shops and parks, check out the vibe. It will involve one of you moving first probably with a commute but eventually you will make it to a smaller, warmer, cheaper house and a free education.

I think you have made the mistake that you should be able to afford certain things because you have good jobs (are you doctors?) but with the CoL, tax etc you simply can’t afford huge, inefficient, houses, 2 cars, private schools in a way high earners of the last generation could. You can afford to live, you. Just can’t afford to live lie it’s the 1980s.

Do your best to keep your daughter in the school where she is happy and thriving. It would not be fair to move her now.

It sounds as though you live out in the country somewhere, with insular, village attitudes. I live in a London suburb and it is very multicultural, schools have a good mix of ethnicity and religion; no child would be using the P word (unless they were being naughty), such things are rarely thought of. However if I moved just a few miles further out it would be quite different so I understand where you are coming from.

All I can think is that you must earn more money. You and your husband need to sit down and work out how to do that. Moving house is costly but may cut down on outgoings. Could you get better paying jobs in your field? Increase the rent on your granny annexe? Even a few quid extra helps.

I am retired now but remember having two jobs at one time just to keep going. That was during the huge recession of the late 1980s-mif 80s when businesses were going bust and people losing their homes left, right and centre.

You'll manage somehow if you are determined and it won't be forever, things will improve.

Try to keep the current hardship away from your daughter as much as you can (I'm sure you do anyway), the last thing she needs is to think you are making sacrifices and feel responsible for it. She should be leading a carefree life right now, she'll have her turn at struggling later on. She won't be the only one at school whose parents are feeling the pinch, it's widespread. Blame the economy,

Good luck!

I think emigration to India will happen. It has a booming economy and a lot less regulation. Unlike China it is also a democracy. I think its prospects are really strong. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t have a myriad of problems, but I do think there are opportunities in countries like India that don’t exist here.

Like a PP, I'm so sorry to hear about your daughter's experience of racism and the impact it has had on her at such a young age. It is inexcusable and I wonder what steps the schools took to nip it in the bud. Schools can be brutal places. Or they can be lovely affirming places. As your daughter is now settled and happy in her current school, I would try to preserve that if you can and look at other ways to cut costs, like downsizing. It sucks that this could mean moving away from your village and other family who rely on you. Tough decisions and I wish you all the best.

Yes, sorry, there's a huge difference between "we literally can't afford to eat" and "we don't have a spare £20,000 a year to spend on a non-essential that 93% of children don't have."

The bullying sounds absolutely horrendous and I completely understand why you have made the decision you did, but at the end of the day, if you had a second child, or jobs paying just two or three grand less, you wouldn't have been able to afford it anyway, and would have had to try something else.

There are obviously many areas in the UK where your daughter wouldn't stand out, if anything would be with the norm. I'd consider moving to one of those. But even in a more rural area, hopefully a secondary school with far more pupils would be more diverse than a small village primary.

Unless, with NHS jobs there's any capacity for either of you to go private/do extra consulting work? Basically you either need to increase your income quite significantly, even if it means one of you switching to a job you dislike/involves a lot more hours, or cut it significantly, and the school fees seem to be the only option.

There's not really any other alternative - like everyone else in the world struggling with money the only two options are to either increase income or spend less.

Echoing all the other posters who have said speak to the Bursar and head teacher even if you think you don’t qualify for a bursary. One family I know both work for the nhs in high paying roles but just couldn’t make ends meet and essentially begged the head teacher and bursar and negotiated a discount. PP comment about assuring the school of confidentiality is key because they can’t offer discounts to everyone. Just ask.

You may not get much sympathy on here as most posters have no idea how damaging racism is and tend to see private school as a privilege (which it is but sometimes needed in specific situations). We are Asian too, and find private school fees a struggle so I understand, but I would seriously consider moving out and downsizing for a few years to get your daughter through school then moving back to the village once she’s older. Unless you have more children in which case you will need to decide if it’s worth trying to get the wcjool
to address this. The culture of the secondary school may be different to what she has experienced before and she might be more resilient now she is older.

There are other options eg you could make your mortgage interest only for a few years to manage or pay less into pension, take on private work etc. I have gone full time and do an extra side job at the weekend, if you are in healthcare there are lots of options.

Can you downsize? , I know people are saying withdraw her from private school but I could not send my child to school knowing she is being bullied and it's not getting any better.

The problem is, @teaandyarn , the OP gave her thread the title "we can't afford to live anymore".
I came on, as did others, expecting to give support to someone in desperate need.
Clearly, she's not.
There is some good advice on here, and I hope she takes it.

They wouldn’t be putting her back a year and putting her in year 6.