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 Our daughter had been very withdrawn the whole of year 2 and 3, we put it down to post Covid disruption.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.

You can definitely afford to live! You can’t can’t afford the life you want.

I agree with this.
Where is your nearest city?
Im so upset to read this in this day and age.
My brother had a simmilar issue as his daughter is mixed race. He managed to get her in a school in liverpool thats affilated with the universties which was much more diverse.
Then high school he has her in a grammar school but they did move but its free

The title of this is so dramatic and insulting to those genuinely struggling financially. You can't afford private school fees, you look for a more suitable school for your child or home school, there's no other suggestion. It does not mean you are in hardship- you would save thousands of pounds. Rightly so you're not entitled to benefits? I'm sorry your daughter was bullied genuinely that's horrible - most people do not have the option to send their child to private school and have to think of other ways to help their child.

I want to caution against the "just rent your house out and rent somewhere smaller/cheaper" ideas. I think these stem from a misunderstanding that the difference in the rent between the 2 houses will be in OP's pocket.

The first problem is that the tenants might not pay their rent. Then OP has to pay her original mortgage plus the rent for the new place she is committed to.

The second problem is tax. Rental income is taxable income. As professionals in the NHS I expect OP and her partner are higher rate tax payers - or the rent they received for renting out their property would make them higher rate taxpayers.

If the OP's house rents for 2k each month tax at 40% would amount to £9,600 (before considering deductions for finance, insurance, repairs and maintenance). If the OP has a mortgage as seems to be the case mortgage interest is no longer fully deductible as an expense. Instead a 20% credit is given which results in mortgage capital repayments being taxed at 40% and mortgage interest paid taxed at 20%.

Basically renting the house out to save money renting elsewhere is not viable financially.

I would wonder if the relatives OP describes as "asset rich, cash poor" are as cash poor as she thinks. I think the first thing to do is ask relatives if they can help with a gift/loan/monthly amount towards the fees. Tell them you are struggling. They might have hundreds of thousands in savings. They might have other parcels of land or property that can be sold. Could the OP remortgage her own house?

It does seem sensible to try the state secondary school to me. There is racism in society. I would agree that this is the case in most societies as has been discussed in the thread. I think it is inevitable your daughter will come across racism at some point and you need to try and equip her with strategies if you can. You can also intervene and demand action/write to the governors etc.

The obvious solution is that your child needs to go to a state school.

Moving gives you no guarantee she won’t experience bullying, by the way. I live in a good area (consistently in the top best areas to live in the UK) and DD suffered horrendous bullying. My coworker’s child just started school and like yours he’s being called P this P that. My coworker dismissed it as he’s white, but his wife saw it for what it was. I have no idea how the children even clocked his kid, he looks like the average southern European, I know his mother isn’t white but again, very white passing. Kids will latch on to anything to bully other kids.

I feel for you though, watching your child suffer from bullying is horrendous and schools are pathetically bad at tackling it. If anything they help the bullies.

And as you’re in a position to do so, I’d move towards private work.

Home educate with a network of intelligent, non racist parents

i would try not to move house or move you child schools.
two pronged attack
1 where can I save money
2 how can I earn more money

I have saved huge amounts of money by using community fridges, which are a food waste project. No buy on clothing. I’ve lasted 2 years so far apart from underwear. Does a relative have somewhere you could live, possibly with the elderly grandparents and rent your house out?

Earning more. Sell everything you don’t need or want on Vinted/ebay/ facebook
can you rent out the main part of your home for the summer, set up a campsite in your garden if you’re in a touristy area, take on some private work, remortgage, switch to interest only

Racist bullying shouldn’t be dismissed as “a bit of name calling.” Although I agree that all children (and adults) should develop resilience, no one should simply passively accept bullying or racism. The OP’s child was deeply affected by her experiences, and the school did nothing to address the problem effectively. I will hazard a guess that you have never been the target of racism?

What happens to their salaries?

This.
Don't let them force you out. Go to the principal, local MP, get a solicitor's letter, get a meeting set up with the parents of these buses with the bullies!
Wherever you go there will be racist of some sort but you can't let them defeat you!

What an awful post. Bullying ruins lives. It is a form of abuse. I'm guessing that to make such a clueless post you have never been the victim of it?

Why? She left the school some years ago and is now secondary age.
The time to act would have been when she was a pupil there.

Also they're missing the point that the village school is a primary and she's now in yr7.

Ok so this update changes things. Sounds like it will be heart- wrenching for all to move. Have you looked at the local state secondary provision? Many children travel a fair distance for secondary and they tend to be much larger and more diverse in terms of intake than primary. You could even look at one local to where you or DH work as you could drive her there and back.

Being unemployed will cost more than school fees.

I agree with Jollybee.
What the hell were the school doing allowing this to happen?
If it came to it I'd have threatened the School with lead action if they sat on their laurels and allowed this to happen. I am from an ethnic minority background although I have lived and worked in the UK for over 30 years. Although I am white people don't realise that I am not British until I speak.
Surprisingly, I was bullied as an adult at work twice.
It was awful and did adversely affect me. I did go to senior management who didn't want to have to deal with it. They just wanted to sweep it under the carpet. In one instance the bully suddenly died! Nothing to do with me I hasten to add.
In the other, the main bully (who I challenged) eventually left. Both of these female bullies had mental health issues in my view. Bullies do tend to back down if they know that you won't take their shit and if they persist that they could be in a whole world of shit.
There was no way that I was going to leave my job that I had spent 5 years at third level education to qualify for and went through a very rigorous interview process to get. Fuck that and fuck them!

I know coming out of the NHS pension scheme is madness but if you need an action of last resort? I expect that will save you and your partner a couple of hundred pounds each a month. It won't save as much as the deduction on your pay slip as your pension is paid from pre-tax income I believe. You would have to make sure you will be allowed back into the scheme later. I think this probably is an actual last resort and you would be better to extend your mortgage etc.

On the off-chance your partner is older (57+) could he take flexible retirement (if that is offered in the NHS like it is in local government?) basically he would have to reduce his hours a little but could take his pension and 25% tax free lump sum.

This??

I live in what I would describe as an insular village (but only lived here 5yrs) and I cannot wait to leave!!! Move closer to the school, she presumably doesnt have any friends where you live so move somewhere more diverse?

Really sorry OP. Could you move to a more inclusive area where the state schools have a better balance of ethnicities?

But not all home educators are at home all the time

So what happens to the daughter?

Yes, that's what most of us have been suggesting on this thread, it would seem like the obvious solution.
However, she doesn't want to move.

Well, they bloody well should be

Are you suggesting its okay to leave young children home alone while their parents are at work?

The daughter is already at secondary school, so doesn't need to be with a parent at all times.