How much do you sacrifice to send Dc to private school?

[VeryTiredMummyOf2]

I have 2 Dc, just want to know what people give up? And is it worth it?

I gave up my weeks holiday in Skeggy

As always it comes down to the schools on offer.
We have decided that our local preps are not worth giving up holidays, taking part in all the clubs our children want to do, taking them to the theatre etc.

But our secondary choices may well mean that it is worth us giving up all that.

Remember too, it is also about what you take on. For us it was a choice between me working full or part time. We felt our children needed me to be home and able to give them more time.

Again, it all comes down to the schools on offer.

It really depends hugely on your child and want their particular needs are. Some children will do well anywhere (with the right parental support, of course). Some have particular needs which require certain provision. My ds has ASD and I have been spending significant sums of money on specialist education for him since he was 2.5, and he is now in a private prep. I can honestly say it's the best investment we have ever made, but the sacrifices have been significant. When I think of where he might be without it I have to say it's hugely worth it.

What have you sacrificed *ReactionaryFish8 if you don't mind me asking?

Well, I work much harder than I otherwise would for one thing! Ideally I'd like to work 3 days a week or so. It's quite hard in my profession to get that sort of gig and once you take it, you're pretty much relegating yourself to also-ran status, and I just can't afford to do that. The other stuff - driving old bangers, no fancy holidays etc - doesn't really bother me personally, but I would like more time with the DC. We've also had to draw on our parents for money, especially before we secured a measure of local authority funding for ds.

We haven't had to make a conscious decision to sacrifice things, but I guess if the kids weren't at private school we might have more holidays, or buy a bigger house, or put more in our pensions. Or we might not!

When friends go skiing, I always think, "Nice if you can afford it." Then I think, "Hang on, we've got kids in private school and they haven't, and I'm not fussed about going skiing anyway ."

For us, I suppose, the most difficult aspect is the fact that we are spending all this money on education now means we are not building up the resources we would like to leave the DC, and in particular DS, secure after our deaths. I would like to leave behind a pot of money for DD to administer on DS behalf, because I doubt he will have much earning capacity of his own. We've plumped for investing in education now, and maximising his independence, but it may never be total, which is a worry for us.

We were like you AllPastYears, we missed holidays, new cars, etc and I never felt "comfortable" IYSWIM, always thought "can I afford this" which I wouldn't have done without the school fees but now DCs have left school, both are doing well and appreciate what we have done for them so it has all been worth it

Stopped paying into our pensions, reduced our life insurance, moved house to go in joint with my Mum so we can share bills, only had 1 car for 7 years, 1 holiday every 3/4 years, xmas/bdays - we don't give each other pressies and the kids only get one from us (and something little from their brothers) - although we have plenty of family so they don't really notice! Don't do days out - we take them to LEGOLAND once a year which is their big treat.
Do I regret it? - no, Would I do it all again? - yes. For us it's worth it, 100%.We have 3 DS and a teacher at the prep school once said to us once they would have done well anywhere (which grated a bit!) - and they probably would have done - but for us it's worth the sacrifice. We know that when they leave home we will be retiring and will not have a penny, we will have to sell the house and move into a little flat somewhere and live off what equity there is in our family home (hopefully there will be some).... I doubt we will have anything to be able to give the kids, but I'm hoping that the gift of the finest education will mean that they will be helping us, not the other way round!

Moving out of London. Cheaper (but same size house). Cheaper prep schools, cheaper wrap around care and cheaper music lessons. Net result I won't be as close to my family in West London as moving East but my husband and I both fell in love with the school and we hope that the boys will be happy there. We probably won't be able to have as many holidays but otherwise the main sacrifice is not having family close by.

We take budget holidays, drive old cars and live in a smaller (but big enough) house in a cheaper area than we might otherwise. You never know how things would have gone if you'd made the other choice, but my dc have been happy and achieved far beyond my expectations (not just in academic terms) and seem to be lovely caring people too, so I'd say it's been worth it for us. None of the things we've forgone have been especially important to us in any case: a car is a means of getting from A to B and if it does that I'm happy; many of the best holidays we've had have been ridiculously cheap - I've not noticed much/any correlation between cost of holiday and enjoyment.

I suspect this is going to anger some. But here goes its not what we sacrifice rather what we don't have in relation to our income. Our income is £85000 + heavily weighted towards DH so an eye watering amount of tax paid. We live like a family on half of that so no we don't wear primark clothes or shop in Aldi but we do have oldish cars we no longer eat in restaurants on a regular basis or go to the theatre we have one holiday a year usually one week camping in Europe but no weekends away second holidays. We definitely don't go to legoland (DC's too old now) but a friend suggested Go Ape and at £100 for a few hours i felt there were better ways of spending the money. So I suppose what I'm trying to say is that we don't have the luxuries that perhaps others on our income might have. I work full time and if my ship came home tomorrow then I would cut my hours back and finish my Msc but I take the view that we've not many years to go and that the Msc won't run away.
Just need to add before lots of how do you qualify for a bursary posting DC at boarding school so were paying equivalent to day fees.

Since using up the last of our savings a couple of years ago, we're now giving up: holidays apart from 3 days camping in Wales last year, new clothes, full-price food (buy everything reduced), gas (we've been using only the slightly erratic solar-heated water and the woodstoves). We're growing our own vegetables, rearing our own chickens for eggs (which we sell) and meat. We have only a tiny mortgage (taken out to convert to biomass heating, hopefully happening very soon), and one child in private school now, one in day nursery 2 days per week. My husband earns juuust into higher rate tax bracket (by about £200/year) and I earn about 25-30% of that and do all the veg and chicken stuff etc...

For us, it has been very much worth it.

I suppose it goes without saying that we aren't saving anything at the moment, and I also don't have a pension. Because of where we live we have to have two cars. One is 13 years old and still going strong, the other is only 5 years old but replaced the previous car that died at 13.

No savings here either and DH no pension but also no debts credit cards loans etc.

No proper holidays for us. Just a long weekend in London using Tesco hotel vouchers. DCs go on school trips though, but GPs help out with that. Well worth it as our local state schools are dire (special measures etc) DH works full-time and I work part-time. Not rolling in dosh but content iyswim.

No vices either no fags and perhaps one mid priced bottle of wine every six weeks unlike many of our friends who drink one everyday. So that's an upside to school fees!!

Their father's divorce settlement costs me more in interest than school fees.

I was paying school fees when I was 25 (nursery school) and 27 (Haberdashers) so am now in year 24 of continuously paying school fees for children. 5 years plust 3+ univesrity years to go so it's just part of life.

The best thing women can do is work hard in work they love which is very well paid and then they don't need to worry about school fees but so very very few make wise career choices.

A more pertinent question is why as a woman do you earn £x[ low sum] and what led to that? Did your mother not work? Are you working class? Is your IQ low? Did you not realise artists / call centre workers might make less than actuaries or surgeons? Weren't you prepared to work hard? Are youi married to a sexist man who doesn't let you work etc etc?

Because of course Xenia anyone who does not earn 100K plus must have a low IQ.

I think it is utter madness to not pay into a pension or have any security so you can pay school fees, particularly if you have children who will do well anywhere, as I suspect most of us do.

I earn about £26000 a year I was a SAHM for 7yrs primarily because my DH was often away, I have no free child care; grand parents too far away and elderly and one DS was ill until 5yrs old and always in hospital. If I hadn't taken a career break I probably now would be on £40 000+ although probably no happier in my work and we wouldn't have qualified for a such a big bursary but we still couldn't afford £32000+ a year!

We all make choices. My DS may have done as well if we're talking about academic results but he would not be as happy or as stimulated as he is now. By the time I'm 50 its all over so then we will think about these other things.

We have 2 dc (both with bursaries in place) dc1 already at indie with dc2 due to start in sept.
We looked very closely at our income/outgoings and realised if we stopped

meals out
foreign holidays
planned meals to cut down food bill
increased my working hours

we could almost afford the fees. We contacted the schools and they took pity on us!

We are both in relatively poorly paid careers, (poor career choice made at early age!!!) and as one of the schools said "well, 2 *'s are never going to be able to afford private schooling". I think they appreciated us trying though!

SO worth it for us. DC1 having the time of his life, and DC2 can't wait to start in sept.

Before people have a go at me -
Poorly paid career compared to actuaries, doctors, financial sector.

NiceH, if you read what I wrote I gave a series of options. I did not say everyone fell into all those categories and I also asked. There may be lots of other reasons why some women earn very little. They might have no legs, all kinds of things.

Interestingly if you're on very low income you will definitely qualify for a bursary. It's those in the middle who are looking for a place in a day school and on just over £40 000 - £50 000 gross who it would appear seem to fall through what must be a very frutrating gap. I can't see how you can afford full day school fees (I'm assuming min £18 000) on £p40 000 gross.