Paying fees on VERY moderate income, how can it be done?

[Onthesedgeofoureats]

Dd has been accepted at the Prep I have wanted her to go to from being born, and I am over the moon, as I thought it was a pipe dream. I have no real idea why I entered her, as I knew it was a pipe dream until we start earning properly. It is a selective academic, and she totally fell in love with it. Even the school admitted it seemed like the perfect fit for her. She was a high scorer on the entrance exam, and the school seem as delighted as we are.

However, both dp and I are still studying for the next two years, so have a combined income of £1,500 a month, which is lovely, but not enough as the fees are £1100 a month. We have some equity in the house, but cannot realise it through re-mortgaging as we have hit our max allowed, and have the "cheapest" house available within 15 miles, so would have to move a long way away to downsize, which we can't do as dp needs to be near his lab. We're not going to get a bursary are we? I know I'm trying to have my cake and eat it, and that we are going to have to turn down the place, but I was just wondering how people on incomes like ours did jiggery pokery to try and manage the fees. Straws, clutching, etc.

Any input gratefully received.

I am open mouthed at this.

Op you cannot afford it just like 90 per cent of people in this country.

Think about the economic situation and how quickly things can change. Really, this seems foolhardy especially as you are happy with thd state option.

oh and just for the record bitchy comments ! I wasnt talking to you at any point in my first post but you still felt the need to single me out and call me sexiest (highly offensive) a show off and out of touch. Get a grip I to can have my views thank you end of.

I went to a private school and most parents had help from either the school or another charity. Our school was supported by the worshipful company of drapers. They were fantastic with their support for the education of children and my friend told me they helped her parents pay for her brother to go to a top boarding school which her parents could never afford as sheep farmers. If I remember correctly she told me her parents were paying GBP3k a year in fees for both of them when boarding fees were just over GBP15k a year.

I would take a look at the different Livery Companies in London and see if any of them have support in place. Start with the top twelve and work down. There are also other organizations such as the masons. I am not sure how that works but a couple of girls in my year had fathers who were involved and they were not big earners (policemans daughter living in a 2 up 1 down, carpenter with wife at home to care for disabled child).

There is private school near us for children with not so much money it is for children who are very bright minded and has an exam etc to get in but no fees , is there anywhere like this you can look into.

We looked at a fee paying school and reached the conclusion that we couldn't afford it. It may be the end of a dream but it isn't the end of the world, there are some excellent state schools out there.
My understanding (from friends who have children in the private sector) is that if you have applied for a bursary you should hear whether you have been awarded one when the place is offered. However bursaries are not always available across all year groups and it could be that this is the reason you haven't heard anything. You could check this with the school. You could also enquire if it would be possible to "defer" the offer to start at a later date.

I really never understand these threads.I would love a lot of things but can't afford them and that is that.You should never have applied really I know several people with quite good salaries struggling with fees atm.If you really want this sell and rent

Can I just say, again, that we have an income very similar to the OP's and have put our daughter through independent school for the last 6 years......

Stoozing in the current climate is daft.The idea sounds good but you need to be organised and disciplined.

Janinlondon your posts have been an eye opener. Not thinking about it to finance private education but reroofing our stable block.

lol sue52 love your comment

hana21, your manners and grammar aren't that polished considering you went to private school

i know i was a sports scholar i repersented my country i got loads of benefits from private school in that department. I wasn't very hot on the education side of things i got 1A 1B 6Cs and 1D in my gcse and i think if i had been at state school i would have been a straight d pupil lol.Its not just the intelligent that do well sports and art where just as important. Hope that explains mrbearn lol

Do you mean a stateschool hana?

I'll let you off then hana!! Well done with the sports scholarship though

Hi Hana. My younger brother went to the state school. He went to the local primary, and then wanted to go to state at 11 with his friends, rather than local private school that myself and older brother attended.

My younger brother is very sporty, and represented his county at cricket etc.

My younger brother considers revising cheating, and from his very good comprehensive, got 9 GCSE's, which included an A in Sport Studies, B's in Maths, Dual Award Science, Design and Technology, C's in other subjects, and a D in Welsh. I think he did secretly do some revision for sport studies, as he wanted the A in this subject, as sport was his passion. He never did A levels, but did vocational training.

I recall my parents comparing this to my older brother, who was academic (5 A's and 4 B's), and did revise. They decided younger brother would have done no better academically at private school, and was very happy at his state school. My older brother is 11 years older than younger brother, and put the good grades down to GCSEs having got easier

Younger brother has since joined family business, and works very hard, and is driving the business forward. My parents are so pleased they saved the money on his education, to reinvest into their business.

You would not necessarily have done so badly at a state school!!

Parents have never regretted spending the money on two of their childrens education, but they have also never regretted saving it on my younger brothers education.

P.S. Younger brother has never been bitter over not having a private education. He knew from a young age, he didnt ever want a professional job.

My younger brother's dream is to earn enough money to one day buy a farm. Since he was 3 years old he has wanted to be a farmer (our mum is a farmers daughter, and he loved helping his uncle on mum's family farm).

So hana, because you 'think' you would have got all Ds in state school you know private school is better. The quality of science teaching at your private school must have been awfull if you jump to conclusions like that!

don't forget that fees are rising every year

I would not commit myself to fee apying school unless I had a reasonably paid job

12.5K for a prep school is a lot
they will tell you she will fit in and is perfect as you'd be paying 1/3 of wages of some teacher - so they need you and every other child there

I don't think it was the teachers that helped it was the life. At our local school it would have been 9 till 3 and no pressure on prep. At private school it was 8.30 till 5.30 sat morning school and supervised prep. That doesn't work for all children, some want to learn I wasn't fused and needed the discipline that's why I think in a state I would have got ds not because they are rubbish at all just not right for me

I too am a bit [hmmm] at this thread.

We are weighing up whether or not we can afford private education for our son, but would not think of applying for bursaries etc as we have no need for them.

We have a good income, but live in an expensive part of the country with high housing and lifestyle costs and need to weigh up whether this is a choice we are going to make.

At the end of the day, private education is a choice and if you can afford it, good luck to you.

I have no problem with families receiving bursaries if they cannot afford fees through misfortune or simply because the jobs they do are not given a high financial value by society eg. nursing. But why are both the parents studying at the moment if they wanted their daughter to attend a fee paying school? Why not defer for a couple of years and work in the meantime? Sorry, but it seems like bad planning to me and I don't think that it is the duty of a bursary fund to sort it out.

also entranced by the idea of stoozing but presumably you need along term plan for how to pay off the debt (or does the income pay the fees?)

Also how do you avoid the fees for balance transfers?

I think the days of making decent money out of stoozing are over. Credit card companies do not offer such high credit limits, there are more fees on balance tranfers eg. 3% is a common fee these days, and also mortgage rates are currently lower than they were a few years ago.

If you had no balance transfer fee a few years ago and an interest rate of 6% and a bank lends you £15,000 on one credit card you could have easily made it worth the effort and it would not have been too difficult to get a total of £80,000 offered to you on a combination of cards.

Today you may have to pay a 3% transfer fee, have a mortgage rate of 4% or less and the bank will only offer you £3,000 credit anyway, it all works out not to be worth the hassle. Also I am not sure if most credit cards will even transfer the cash across to a savings or offset mortgage account these days.

I think janinlondon got lucky with her timing and the economic climate of easy credit and before half the population received mse emails ie. before the banks added transfer fees on credit cards because so many people got wise.

I seriously doubt whether you could even cover the extra curricular activities these days let alone the school fees from stoozing.

OP WHERE ARE YOU? DID YOUR DC GET THE BURSARY OR NOT?

Thanks Fapl, that's incredibly helpful!

Fapl is right - the days of classic stoozing are pretty much over - you have to balance the fee against the interest on your offset and it doesn't make a lot any more. So what we are now playing is the 0% purchase credit card game - where you buy everything (really - EVERYTHING) on a 0% card for 10-12 months, while at the same time paying the actual money you spend into an offset account. And again, it makes a surprising difference. No balance transfer fees to consider. There is always a way for the canny minded....!

I've not read the whole thread, but feel I must just comment, because I work in a prep school, but will not be sending my own children there, despite knowing what a great school it is. My reasons:

• I see lots of parents drive themselves into financial hardship, and I simply don't think the superior education is worth the domestic stress. A happier family will take a child a lot further than good CE results.

• it's a conveyor belt that is very hard to get off. The prep fees are nothing compared to the senior school fees, and few families are happy to go back into the state system once they've started private.

• the extras will soon mount up and the £12.5k you're looking at right now will quickly become £15k, once she starts music lessons, or asks to have extra coaching in a sport, or to join extra curricular activities. And don't get me started on the school trips.

If you are really keen to give her the independent education push, have you thought about doing it the other way round? At primary school you can assist her education with some activity books at home. It's once the subjects begin to specialise at senior school you won't be able to keep up in all subjects. Investigate GDST schools - if there's one in your area they are much cheaper than most independents, but achieve amazing results.