Can we afford it?

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I wanted to know if we are being realistic. Our joint income is around £120,000 - £130,000 a year. Is that sufficient to comfortably put a child through private senior school in central London? I think we can - husband thinks too much of a stretch. Otherwise it is going to be a case of moving out of london instead. Our mortgage is very small but I will freely admit that I would not be happy if I have to count every penny for the next 6/7 years.

How on earth do you spend 150 a week just on evening meals?

You could easily spend less than 3k on kids clothes if you wanted to put another couple of thousand towards school fees.

Its not only evening meals, its the baby meals and baby stuffs and related households, it could be even more.

And not mentioning £2.8k council tax awhhh!!!

£3k clothes is for the 2 parents casuals and the 2 kids each year, we dont wear brand names...

Dont even let me start with london nanny cost!!! Thats however isnt infinite(we still need a nanny until the baby is at least 12 to pick and drop and look after her after school)

To be honest, no amount of budgetting could help with £24k a year each child and rising

I'd say it's doable. We have a slightly higher gross income but two sets of school fees. It probably means some economies compared with no school fees - our holiday budget of £10k pa is being scrutinised ...

The big years where both will be at senior school/6th form (so combined fees at current rates of about £46k) will mean eating into savings.

I guess it really depends on other outgoings. We have a pretty small mortgage, don't spend a lot on cars (the current ones might well see us through until school fees end), etc.

we live comfortably within our means with savings

how much do you save each year and is that more or less than the fees? if more, you can afford it. if less, you'll have to cut back.

Be cautious towards those who are saying budget £20k for fees if you are looking at central London - it all depends on the school and expect fees to go up by at least 5% per year.

St Pauls £22644
Westminster £24276

Those are the top 2 schools in the country so not really representative of the sector.

yes but many others in the area are at 18k or so already so will be rising to well above 20 in the years that a child would be there.

Latymer Upper, G&L, Hampton, Emanuel, the GDST schools, Frances Holland, Kings Wimbledon etc are all around £6k per term now. City of London cheaper at around £5k. As already said Westminster/St Pauls much more. Add in a not unusual 5% annual increase. Add in lunch, travel (only bus is free remember when they get to 11 and trains only cheap to 16), uniform which can often only be got from specialist suppliers, normal pe kit plus appropriate bats etc - lacrosse sticks, cricket bats, hockey sticks, then music lessons and trips and then you have easily got to the £20k a year point at the start and it will be more like £25k at the end of the child's time there. Sixth forms often charge about £2k more than Ys 7 - 11.

Also factor in FAR longer school holidays - friends of mine have children off for 9/10 weeks in the summer, 2 weeks October half term, 4 weeks Easter.

I spent £10k on a weekend away to NY once! Those were the days! I know someone who would spend £50k on one holiday. I know someone else who puts aside £50k each year for holidays. I know someone that can't afford to stop working for a week in order to take a holiday!

Point is, it's all relative to your own situation...

Yes we spend more than that on holidays.
But we don't pay school fees.

I will freely admit that I would not be happy if I have to count every penny for the next 6/7 years.

we count every penny in order to afford school fees. many people do. You need to decide how much you would resent that and whether it is worth it for you.

We spend more than 10k on holidays but again I have all my family abroad and visit three times a year plus we try to have a holiday elsewhere once a year.

Cutting back would mean seeing my ageing parents and family just once a year, which is very tough as we are a close knit family.

We also do private school fees on a tighter budget than yours OP but we are using a lot of savings and have no mortgage.

it depends how much you want to prioritise it.
on that salary with little /no mortgage and one child yes you can definitely do it.

So, you have an approximately £7K net pcm and a minimal mortgage? Therefore, yes, even with day fees of say £18K pa, I would say that you can definitely afford one set of school fees out of pure income. Presumeably, you have savings too?

We currently pay one set of school fees entirely from income. When DC2 starts secondary in a few more years, we'll be funding 2 sets of school fees using a combination of income and savings.

We made this decision many many years ago. DS is now 21. The KCS fees were £3k per term when we started (all in) and £7k when we finished (8-18) so expect it to double.

We would not have taken the decision had it been dependent on income. We had a cushion of three years' fees in the bank when we started and an expensive house with a small mortgage which, in the event of unforseen financial issues, could have been produced sufficient capital to educate two children.

Don't forget to factor in uni' costs - even if you don't pay their fees, on those sorts if incomes they will only be able to receive about £3,500 pa. DS's hall fees were more than £7k; his rent not much less with food and bills on top.

You know that the only 2 options are not private school or move out of London, don't you? You could, (gasp, shock horror), send them to a state school...

OP: Think long and hard at the added value of the private school if you are not 100% sure of the finances. Work out the compound interest on the fees factoring in a 5% annual rise. And add at least £2000 pa for extras. London private schools are over subscribed so have little incentive to keep fees down.

Most London state secondaries are good and getting better every year - although I appreciate that some are still dire and you may live in a black hole.
But even if your local schools are poor, if you have time you can still play the system. Academically selective place? Musical/Art/Language aptitude? Are you religious? Can you get her into a feeder primary? If you do get her into a decent state school, you can if necessary supplement the school's teaching with tutoring/extra curricular and save money to be spent on extras.

The vast majority of UK children are educated very successfully in the state system. The vast majority of clever children are in the state system. The vast majority of DC going on to sought after Universities including Oxbridge, Imperial, etc come from the state system. Study after study show that the greatest influence on educational outcomes is the family background.

Private school prospectuses - on which hundreds of thousands are spent by the schools- would have you believe something different. And their students do do very well. But in most cases those same students would have done equally well in their local state school.

Hey, if I had an income of £125k I would very happily spend £10k a year on holidays!

Will this be the only DC?

Actually I'm going to counter that drinkstoomuchcoffee. The independent sector gives confidence and networking opportunities that are priceless. We recently attended an event with some bits from DS's old primary who went into the London grammar system. The boys that transferred to the independent sector had mire presence and were far more self assured and at ease.

Where we live, excluding the grammars (and they weren't right fir our DS) there was nit one secondary we would have put on the list. Not one that offered a choice if MFL, a classical language and triple science with a promise that all subjects were taught by degree specialists. Combined with the behaviour on the streets it was completely unacceptable. Two schools made the shirt-list for dd. Both code - one realistically too far away - the other regarded as the holy grail. She did a year there. The behaviour was unspeakable and standards were declining rapidly.

Boys from the old primary - phone spelling flaw!

Beau: I think the confidence and networking points are interesting. And that is of course what many parents believe they are getting from the private system.

But I would argue that most of the 7% of UK children who are educated in the private sector, and certainly almost all of those who attend the big boarding schools, already come from homes where confidence, polish and networks are taken as read. They do not acquire these advantages from the schools. They take them with them to the schools. And they would not lose them by attending a state school.

I agree that some state schools cannot offer the range of subjects that some independent schools offer at GCSE. But that will depend very much on the individual schools. At 6th form you will get the same - if not greater opportunities- in many state 6th form colleges.

The behaviour point is interesting. I have seen awful behaviour from students from both sectors. And I have seen wonderful behaviour from both as well.

I'm not sure Drinkstoomuchcoffee some of the boys I'm thinking about have much more outwardly confident parents than DH and I are. I would say at primary level the boys were exactly as confident as each other but something was "lost" at secondary school. It's difficult to put ones finger on it but at age 7 they were all very similar. They weren't at 21, probably not at 18.

I don't see how a secondary school that only offers French or Spanish MFL and no Latin can possibly offer A'Level Latin, German, or Greek. I also don't think the same school can successfully offer A'Level Physics if there is no member of staff employed who has Physics as a first degree. If the GCSE options are limited how can the 6th form offering possibly be less limited?

Having said that I think London is different to the rest of the country and the two systems can't be judged in quite the same way. We were chosing between Westminster, St Paul's and KCS. I'm not sure other parts of the country have either such choice at that end or such limitations at the other. My views would probably be different if we were in a different part of the country.

@Beau: I said state 6th Form colleges - not the 6th forms of 11-16 schools. The big state 6th form colleges compete well with most private schools in terms of range of subjects offered. Some of them offer many more subjects. And results and university destinations for higher ability groups again compare very well with the private sector. This is one of the reasons so many parents move their children from private to state at 16.

Impressions of polish/confidence etc are of course anecdotal and subjective. And IME DC from whichever sector are chameleon like and will adapt to fit in with the group in which they find themselves. That may involve several personalities a day and some will have a greater range than others.

But generally speaking, clever DC from supportive home backgrounds are going to do very well whichever school they go to. If the supportive home backgrounds are also wealthy - as in the case of privately educated students - they are likely to do even better. That will apply irrespective of the sector in which they are educated.

Parents paying out between £150,000 and £275,000 of post tax income on one DC's education want to be assured that they are getting something for their money. And I agree that if your choice is Westminster v an undersubscribed secondary in a grotty bit of London you probably are. But no parent who can negotiate their DS's way into Westminster would end up at that undersubscribed secondary. If the choice is between Westminster and say Tiffin the advantage is a lot less clear cut, and if you are choosing between say London Oratory/Greycoats Graveney and some of the less academic London private schools then you really do need to ask what you are getting for your money.

I agree with your last paragraph. Tiffin is fine if children are maths/science driven in my experience - not so if your children are linguistic/liberal arts driven. I agree with you vis a vis the academics compared to oratory/greycoat and less academic schools. I'm not so sure about the behaviour aspects having witnessed it at too close quarters at the school you haven't mentioned.

Also places at those schools are dependent on religion which is a another thread altogether although not something I have a problem with. Graveney is fine but not so easy a journey from some areas and only into the selective streams. There used to be state options for girls but less so nowadays, especially as Surbiton has raised it's game. Greycoat appears to have taken the lead by a country mile as clearly demonstrated by Messrs Gove and Cameron. If only we had been so prescient and less concerned about the journey!

"almost all of those who attend the big boarding schools, already come from homes where confidence, polish and networks are taken as read. They do not acquire these advantages from the schools."
Re: net working DH went to one on Beaus list I don't think its made any difference on that front its all about who your parents know. His parents were middle management level teachers so he's not benefited from any networking.
But the confidence thing might be different, his parents are conservative with a small c affluent but not wealthy MC living a conventional life in what was then boring safe MC suburbia, now a completely over priced highly sought after area.They are not overly confident or particularly shy, just normal for their generation I guess, but my DH and my SIL are come cross as typical confident public school educated people.
"The vast majority of DC going on to sought after Universities including Oxbridge, Imperial, etc come from the state system"
From what I've read on here with links to the Sutton Trust reports the percentage of those going to Oxbridge from independent schools is hugely out of proportion to the percentage actually attending them. I think there are more than 50% at Oxbridge from the independent sector.
Its all down to what you personally want from education and what you want to spend your money on limited or not. If like me you value the the unique opportunities that some independent schools offer over the state sector, and I'm not talking about exams results, Oxbridge entry, networking (if it exists) and confidence, then you'll stump up the money if you've got it even if you have to make savings in other areas.