A question about saving/plans for paying school fees

[Oakmaiden]

Not sure whether this is the best place to put this, or if one of the money forums would be better - but I will try here!

I wanted to pick the brains of anyone who knows anything about school fee payment plans etc.

This is my situation. I have 2 children who may be starting prep school in September - the school have tentatively offered them a 50% bursary, but it is not finalised so may not happen. But I need to make a plan for paying fees incase it does happen!

Basically I will need to pay about £400 a month in total. My husband does not earn a large wage - (he was made redundant from his highly paid job about 2 1/2 years ago and basically had to take what he could find work wise) and so we have a household income of around £2000 a month. We had to sell our home, so no asserts tied up there, but do have around £10K in a savings account.

Obviously it is going to be really tight sending them to this school, even with the bursary. I am happy to go without the extras for the next couple of years though (hopefully I will qualify and be able to get a well paid job in 2 years time, so it won't be a struggle forever).

I am aware there are schemes which help you to plan school fee payments, and which also are supposed to save you money over the course of your child's schooling. Is anyone aware of any which would be appropriate for a family in our financial situation?

Thanks for your help.

There are two types of schemes but I doubt that either will be of use to you.

Type 1. This is basically an investment plan run by an investment manager. You pay in so much a month and a lump sum builds up. Risk is the investment returns are too low to cover the fees and or the fund does badly and loses money and you have a shortfall.

Type 2: You pay the school a certain number of years of fees in advance as a lump sum and then you know exactly how much the fees will cost for the next 3 - 5 years. Risk is the school goes bankrupt and you lose your lump sum.

If you have no spare cash now neither of these routes will be possible for you.

You could look at this website for further ideas.

Some schools have special bursaries for parents with low income and no assets. I assume this is the sort of thing you are being offered with the 50% discount.

There was an article in last Saturday's Telegraph on this topic, though if you can find it online you'll be doing better than me!
Was quite interesting though.

I don't use any scheme to pay school fees. I transfer a set amount of money to an online savings account every month. Then three times a year I transfer enough money to pay the fees. I don't get any interest the months I transfer the money out but I then get interest ( a small amount) the other months.

same here as elk. transfer into savings then out again to pay the bill.

We never planned to send our children to independent school but they both decided to be cathedral choristers. Our savings were for university (desperately trying to hang on to them now!) We do the same as Elk and LinenBasket - put aside into a savings account from income each month and transfer when the bill comes each term. It is tough though at £1600 per month.

Wow - that is a lot choirmum!

Thank you all for your responses. I suspected that the best option would just be doing a monthly thing, but just wondered if there were other options.

Apparently probably not for us. :)