To wonder how the bloody hell people afford private education for their kids?

[HarderToKidnap]

Thinking about TTC and getting WAY ahead of myself I idly googled the local private schools. Bloody hell!! HOW do people afford this? My DH and I earn 100k between us every year so certainly not poor, but with a mortgage (on a two bed terrace) and other, what I consider to be reasonable, outgoings there is just not a way it could be done. So all these children being privately educated, do their parents earn masses and masses? Or am I missing a trick?

(Incidentally I wouldn't send my kid to private school - comprehensive was brilliant for me and if a child is going to do well they will do well, I believe. Was just wondering.)

they sacrifice everything and live off pot noodles

Depends what your reasonable outgoings are, personally we are on similar income to you, and we do it, but cut back on other things e.g. holiday once every 18mths-2 years, rather than twice a year as previously.

A lot of privately educated children I know are funded by grandparents. I have pointed this out to my dc grandparents. They say 'That's nice'

Yes I know a family that run a corner shop in a not so nice part of town . live in a very basic flat above it.
Work all the hours God sends to send theor 3 children to the local privateschool.
Depends on your priorities.

It's what you choose to spend £100k on.
Peolple scrimp and save, and do without.
We could afford private, but I don't want it for my dcs when there is good state education locally.
I would find it hard to struggle, doing without what I consider essentials to my happiness and wellbeing.
And yes, I would resent it.

Maybe they don't have much of a mortgage. Also school fees vary incredibly wildly. Round here a day school is 6k to 9k, Boarding is more like 30k

There are many rich people in this country

I have to say I'm always of the ones who have 5 children at 30k a year schools. Now that's seriously large amounts of spare cash after tax.

I wouldn't mind some of that

Or, like me, you earn sufficiently little that your children can gain scholarships which are topped up with bursaries. We have been extremely fortunate I know. It's the rich and the poor who benefit. Those with middle incomes seem to be the ones who lose out.
Good luck with TTC.

I wouldn't send my kids to private school even if I could afford it

You end up paying for childcare before they start school anyway so you just carry on paying around the same amount.

Dunno, our place was around £5k each per term (2 of us)but we were only day pupils. So that is around £30K per yr. I have no idea how my parents afforded it looking back if you guys can't, my dad must have been on around what the 2 of you earn together, my mum didn't work etc. We lived in a lovely house by the sea, bog standard cars etc but didn't go on expensive holidays cause my dad had a classic yacht that he spent all of his (little) spare time tinkering with and we used to just chill out on the beach and sail instead. I don't know how wealthy or not everyone else was, but I guess looking back we were pretty privileged.

We are expecting our first and are unlikely to ever afford private school. However as teachers I guess we could work in one and get in that way, not that fussed though as there are great states round our way and it is a little way off yet!

We have what I consider to be a decent income (and it's well above the national average) but we can't afford private education for our two children (although I don't agree with PE for ideological reasons).

I think you have to be seriously well off to afford private education for more than one child. And all the talk of cutting back and making sacrifices doesn't wash with me- there's only so much most families can sacrifice, and for the majority it doesn't add up to a spare £6,500+ per child per annum for school fees.

If you have had a child in a private nursery ft before school, then round here, private school (which includes 8-6 childcare) is actually cheaper than the cost of nursery

I remember when preggers I looked at the local private school's fees. Thought, OK expensive but not totally out of my reach. Until I noticed the 'per term' part...

Pixie, you must be seriously minted!

Joint income of £100k is huge to me? Take home of £3500 each a month (very roughly, I'm only guessing) with a mortgage of maybe £500/month on a 2-bed terrace - yikes, what the flip are you buying every month? To me, you prob could afford private school. The ones round here are about £1500 a term.

Well I know how we afford it but I wonder whether it is worth it.

If all goes to plan DSs will be going to a good state grammar school.

depends where you live though doesn't it - within 25-30 miles of here there are fab state schools and you'd be a fool to pay, where we live (and stuck because of geographical restrictions on how far DH lives from his job) the state schools are sh* - i teach in the better of the two local ones (too far away for mine to get into) and tbh i'd sacrifce anything than send my kids there, and they would go to the worse one than that.

They all vary in price, there's the very cheap ones (I'll tell you about the ones here so you get the idea), the local one is £50 a week, there's 2 classes, one is taught by the head who forgets what she's teaching the children. The school has 20 children, there's no facilities other then a concrete yard, I have no idea how it's managing to operate. Mid price works out at £1840 (ish) a term, lovely school (strange headmaster), then there's one a little more expensive but with more facilities, the top whack one is £4k a term (day). You get what you pay for.

"comprehensive was brilliant for me and if a child is going to do well they will do well, I believe."

I'm afraid that is rather naive. It assumes that your local comprehensive is a good school which may not be the case at all. It's easy to say you wouldn't send your child to private school before you have a child and before you see what school they may end up in at 11.

A child can only do as well as the environment they are in allows them to do.

DH earns to pay mortgage, bills, holidays and I earn to pay the school fees + extras.

Unless you have a 2 bed terrace in Kensington and a huge mortgage, on £100k I would think its possible to send two kids to a prep school - secondary then you need to earn more as fees are steep.

Boarding school I would never do but if either child wants to only by scholarship/bursery as to earn £60k net of tax for me would be possible but mean I would never see them (well if boarding that wouldn't matter but I wouldn't enjoy i t)

The main predictor for sending your child to private school is if one of the parents went to private school - so thats you out!

Not everybody on MN lives in london

Well, my school was shit and my husbands was really, REALLY shit. And we had fun and enjoyed ourselves and learned enough to get some reasonable GCSEs and got the hell out. I just can't see the PE would have been "better" for me in any way except possibly academic. I consider it to be a luxury, which I would only ever pay for if I were debt free, going on lovely holidays each year and paying for PE involved absolutely no sacrifice whatsoever!

Oh and stressheaderic, unfortunately our mortgage is 5x what you ahve quoted! 500 quid mortgage would be luvverly.