Think Carefully Before Opting for Private Education

[PRMum2012]

i am a mum of two (23 months and 3 in august)I am self-employed, part time and married to a lovely architect. We have a great life and two happy kids.

On paper I would say I have not done too badly with my life and my aim is to work full time as soon as possible now my kids are a bit older. If the work was available I would happily work full time now.

Despite setting up my own business I can't help feeling like a failure that I can't afford for my own children, what my parents did for me.... It annoys me that I put so much importance on it ... I am now passionate about finding a decent local primary school for my children so they don't feel the same pressure i do now, when they are older and looking for schools for their kids ....but i'll be honest ......assuming i can afford it i would try and do it from 11 if i can....!!!!...

Hopefully by then, my kids will have an input too and they will be forming their own opinions on the issue.

Depending on mortgage and family support I can't see that it's possible for anyone with two kids earning under £80,000 - £1000,000 + (as a family income) to afford private education anymore, my advice is unless you have a thriving business or two, work as a dr, lawyer or banker.... Forget it.

It's really hard to watch my younger sibling do it for her kids, they are paying for private prep while we cant afford it.... But it really upsets me I feel like this... why can't I just be happy for them and quietly satisfied that I don't need to pay on top of my taxes for my kids education.

For my own primary education i went privately, tried the local school for secondary education but was bullied so moved back to the private system.... I had a mix of private and state during secondary - my second private school was amazing but the second state school I attended for 6th form (my choice) was great too so why is this all having such an impact on what I want for my own kids.

My DH is much more laid back, he went privately all the way through but doesn't place as much value on it as I do/did....I wish I felt the same way but all I feel now is pressure to earn more money so I can pay for them both from 11.

These threads always go the same way: every time it turns out that the people who tell you that affording school fees are only a matter of tightening your belt and driving a cheap car earn wages that seem astronomical compared to those of myself and my friends.

The really useful advice on this thread came from wordfactory:

"I am a firm believer that there is no point worrying about things you cannot afford to give your DC. It is utterly corrosive. One has to concentrate on what one can give."

and

"But I should say it is very silly not to give your DC somehting you can give for fear that they might feel bad if they can't.

You could say that about anyhting. Oh better not buy that nice house in case it makes my DC feel sad if they can't afford one. Oh better not go that nice holiday...better not buy decent food..."

Of course you might have other, perfectly valid reasons for not sending your child to private school.

But worrying in case it makes them sad in the future is just wasted effort. You have no idea what your dc's life is going to be like in 30 years time, what their priorities will be and what they will be able to give their children that you can't.

I had a lovely free-ranging childhood, rambling around the countryside. My dd spent most of her childhood in a wheelchair. So should my mother have cut my legs off just to make sure I didn't feel guilty later in life?

Everybody gets their own life. In some respects it is likely to be worse than their parents', in some respects it is likely to be better. Enjoy the good things about your own life and teach your children to do the same.

Fair enough, MTS, you know best.

I've just found a post from 5 years ago when I went through my bank statement and listed our then month luv incomings and outgoings

It was basically

Monthly Income: 2,750

Food & household items £292
Meals Out £80
Takeaways £20
Mortgage £436
Insurances £206
Petrol £100
Utilities £320
Clothes & presents £60
One off bill £30
Other/cashpoint £50
School Fees ISA £1000

Those figures have now changed. Petrol is probably double, our income has gone up to about 3,500 per month and school fees are now around £1,400 per month. I also have dance bills for dd of £100 per month

Cory - who is telling you that you can afford private if only you tighten your belt or drive a cheap car? I'm certainly not.

We are banking DP's salary for our retirement. If it wasn't for that I certainly wouldnt want to be a poor senior citizen living off a state pension with only expensively educated DCs to show for decades of work

You are right. These threads always end up the same way. Posters like yourself ask people like me how we can afford it. We then explain how WE can afford it. You then accuse us of telling you that you too can afford if only you live like we do.

Picture. You paid £206 a month in insurance? Did you have a Ferrari and was you living on top of a geological fault line? :)

That was car, buildings, house contents, PPI and critical illness if I remember correctly for me and dh

Suspect that £206 refers to ALL insurances such as critical illness, life insurance, house insurance etc!

The thing is if there were no private schools then the state really couldnt cope with the influx and what is to stop people with money just living in the 'posh' areas and having very small catchment areas for the schools with overpriced (if there is such a thing!) houses that are then sold onto to other people with money etc. Those schools would be like the private schools - without the fees....

Chosing to pay again for your DC's education I feel makes you really focus on picking the right school.

FWIW - my DH went to a private school - I didnt and he earns 3 times what I do. My school was rubbish btw. It was the year grammar's were scrapped and I went to a sec modern (horrible it was too!).

Its really me that has pushed the private route. It started off when we had to pay childcare which equated to about the same as prep schools. Clearly now fees have gone up as the DC's has got older but our secret weapon and the reason I am not worrying about money and whether we can afford it is the equity we have in our current house in the SE after having lived here for the last 15 years.

Of course we need to live somewhere but not necessarily in a house like this. We could go smaller should the fees become unaffordable

We pay approx £55 pm for two cars and household insurance. No PPI or illness cover.

I spend £2500 pa less on food than Bella. I spend £1800 pa less on insurance compared to you. No wonder people are going on about how THEY would be unable to afford private on £80-£100k.

MTS
The reason I am asking you, is because you tried to give me a lesson in cooking cheaply ( and TBH I'd rather eat beans on toast than feed my family battery farmed chicken)

You said you would tell me how to afford private schools if I told you our outgoings. I gave some rough figures- which included mortgage payments of around £1K a month.

Now if you don't have a mortgage ( maybe paid off with your partner's income? ) then you have considerably more each month with which to pay school fees.

You have consistently refused to answer this issue of mortgages, preferring to rabbit on about food, cars and UK holidays.

We do all of those things you say you do- but unless you put housing into your sums then it's all rather meaningless.

Cost of living in the SE is much higher than anywhere else and although £80K may seem a lot to some people, it isn't when you factor in housing and even higher fuel and food costs in different parts of the UK.

MTS the insurances are for house contents, building insurance and life cover. They are very reasonable in themselves- we shop around- and my car costs me under £190 to insure- it's 11 years old and DH has a company car.

Maybe you are under insured.

Forgot life cover. Make that £75 pm then.

Pictures has PPI and illness cover. People are more likely to claim on that so those premiums can rack up your monthly payments. We are optimists so we have neither.

Underinsured? These days the basic level is quite generous. £1m buildings. £50k contents. So, no, not really.

Bella - if you think that £206 pm is a good deal then you are either a PPI salesman's dream or you new to get a new quote.

We took out extra insurances because of school fees because we know someone whose children had to leave school when the father died.

Since then we have got a better deal on car insurance and dropped the PPI (when I went partly self employed). As I said those figures are 5 years old.

Bella - I originally posted that my mortgage is £1k. You've even posted that it was the same as yours. So why do you keep bleating on about how I refuse to declare my mortgage payments?

You ask me about my outgoings. I tell you that I spend about £2500 pa a year less on food compared to you. Now you are bleating on about me lecturing you on how to economize.

You've plugged in my school fees into your outgoings and you have a figure of £500 net pw to spend. There are people here who don't even have £500 pw gross. Yet you insist that I prove that I can afford to support a family on 500 pw net ???

This is why I can't be bothered to seriously engage you on the subject.

I went to private school - expat brat so most of secondary was paid for. We had a reunion a few years back where most of us had two year olds, and people started talking about schools. About half were going private and had never considered not doing, simply because that's What You Do. A bit of questioning showed that all but one of these families were relying on parents to pay for it.

A couple drinks later the group had split into two, those of us going state because we don't have a spare hundred grand in the family to cover fees, and the private posse.

There is quite a lot of personal attack stuff going on on this thread.

I'm with Happy. We can make different choices for our children (mine are state, by the way, by choice) depending on values and situations, and that is normal and good.

I have gained a lot of insight from reading education threads about private/state ed, but I don't like reading references to posters' personal lives, or to other threads. It makes me a bit

Come to think of it, we can also make different choices based on similar values but different situations. Or vice versa.

My friend is a teacher. Her father owns a 30 room hotel in Cyprus. So not poor but not quite Mr Hilton. Anyway, she went private and because her dad is rich and she and her husband aren't the dad is paying for prep I don't see why the whole thing about GPs paying is worth mentioning.

Possibly to help the OP feel better about not being easily able to afford prep?

The post was followed by the comment that the party divided into two groups - those who had rich parents and those who didn't.

I suspect that the subliminal message was that people with rich parents are snobs as opposed making the OP feel better.

Cynic

MTS you spend £2500 less PA on food than Bella [Sceptical] even if you include take aways eating out from her figures that means your spending £183 a month on food for a family of four that's £42 a week!!!!!!!!!!!?????????!!!!!!!What on earth are you eating. We spend at least £150 a week and DS1 recently did a survey of people's shopping expenses and that was pretty average.
We're rural so no public transport we spend £130 a
week on petrol alone.

Mts
You've plugged in my school fees into your outgoings and you have a figure of £500 net pw to spend. There are people here who don't even have £500 pw gross. Yet you insist that I prove that I can afford to support a family on 500 pw net ???

That sum £500 ppw gross is below the average wage- it's actually the cap for benefits!- and therefore they will be topped up with benefits and child tax credits and all other things that you aren't.

And the food bill I quoted- around £125 a week- includes everything from loo rolls to washing powder, bin liners and toiletries - it's not just food.
Everything I cook is from scratch, we never eat out but one thing I won't compromise on is quality and sources of food.

I'm just wondering- how does anyone earning a 6-figure salary have time to spend ages posting on MN during the day?
just wondering.

Sounds like a nice job if you can get it!

I can't imagine any education so bad or so good that I would voluntarily feed my family on what I could buy for £42 a week to either avoid or access it-that's £10.20 a week per person! My ds spends that on school lunches.

Who's doing that? I've lost the thread of the thread.

I'm time poor and if it was left to me I would buy M&S meals and only cook from scratch ocasionally. My DH disagrees so he does most of the cooking.

We had no help from GP's and I didnt go private.

It was because of the experience that myself and my sibilings had in the state system that made we want to go private. We all went to different schools. They werent great at all!

I know that people will say its different now but what if you cannot get into your first choice school or the local grammar (we are in Bucks) or your nearest school is failing? We can afford as a family due to both working to put our children through private so am not clear what that has to do with anyone's else's circumstances?

Maybe they live in the catchment area for a great school, maybe they have brought their way into a nice area where - surprise, surprise the schools are just as nice, maybe like Seeker despite disagreeing with grammar schools she sends her DD to one. Maybe, there are grandparents paying, maybe there has been some inheritance passed down as I do find that private parents often tend to be older.

What I am annoyed about is people saying paying for private means we have more money than sense or even that we are just copying where we went and where our parents went privately. Not in this instance!