How you afford private school fees?

[notsurehowtodothis]

This isn't intended to be a state vs. private school debate. We are just looking at all the options locally for our two DCs including both state and private schooling and, as our local private schools are in the region of £15-18k per child per year, I just wondered for those of you who pay for private schooling, especially for more than one child, how you find it (as in, what's it like, not 'where' you find it!) making such significant payments each year? And if you've found any great ways to make the payments easier? DH and I only have three viable kidneys between us so options there are limited.....

Youngest' sixth form fees with 'bursary' and dual 'scholarship' still came to around 2.5k a month taking all things into account. We paid 40%. On our joint income of over £350k we still felt like the poor people compared to most families. We still had to say no to some trips etc. Top public schools with charitable status are not charities in the spirit of the Act and are definitely not for the poor.

mini I'm not knowledgable about cars but have just googled Range Rovers (frankly I wouldn't be seen dead in one) a new one seems to be about 60k, let's say you change it every 3 years max and you take two expensive holidays a year, shall we say 15k for a family of four for a couple of weeks in the summer to luxury hotels/sight seeing in Asia and 10k for 1 week skiing in the winter. If you sacrifice the latter and drive a 2nd hand newish Ford Focus and go on holiday with Eurocamp then you could easily find the "12-14k a year necessary for school fees".

the people in know in private schools

-grandparents pay
-burseries
-a household name
-a low level footballer
-a politician

"Youngest' sixth form fees with 'bursary' and dual 'scholarship' still came to around 2.5k a month taking all things into account. We paid 40%. On our joint income of over £350k we still felt like the poor people compared to most families."
Horrified that at a joint income that high allowed any form of bursary.

Yes at our school bursaries are means tested

IT is true that for the majority of parents, some lifestyle changes over holidays and cars driven won't generate enough income to cover school fees.

However, it is also true as a number of people have said, that there are lots of state school educating parents who have higher incomes than those with kids in private schools. For some of those there is an element of choice and some reJigging of lifestyle and expenditure choices CAN make it affordable ....for some.

I can think of a number of my friends who have much bigger incomes than we do and who state educate, whereas we are privately educating. Neither is right or wrong, neither means we love our children or care and their education any more or less.

What has allowed us to do it and what 'choices' have they made which means they haven't got the cash for it?

• We live in a modest 3 bed semi and some of them live in 4 and 5 bed detached houses.
• we don't have a mortgage now and some of them have huge mortgages
• we holiday in the UK (3 or 4 hols a year, but each well under a grand) whereas some of them ski and have exotic holidays abroad.
• we have 2 small cars which are 8-10 years old whereas some of them have new, big cars every couple of years.
• we do basic diy and house maintenance, some of them have had loft extensions or other extensions and regularly engage in home improvements.

I'm not saying any of these choices are superior to any others or that choosing a big house and holidays is somehow a lesser choice. Those families have made choices and it may well be that the holidays and house etc deliver greater family satisfaction than using the money for education would bring. I also recognise that for most people it isn't an either/or because they aren't having private education OR the lifestyle.

However, I think this thread is about people for whom the decision to send private or not is a marginal one. The people we are talking about have decent enough incomes to start considering it, but are not rolling in it so school fees will never be a drop in the ocean. Whilst people lucky enough to even consider it are not the majority of the population, they are a larger proportion than those who do choose private in the end. For these people for whom the choice is marginal, lifestyle choices have to be made and are.....and in the end they reflect the one people value most, along. with some of the constraints they live under.

What people in those marginal circumstances consider 'necessary' to live varies for a start. We are talking about the middle classes in most cases and for some, a newish car and a house in a good area feels like an essential .....but it's actually a choice. They could equally live in a poorer area with a small mortgage and perhaps pay school fees......if they chose to. Many will prioritise the bigger house or the nicer area...and perhaps long term in terms of finance, that makes sense as the house will appreciate.

Ultimately I think that the sooner people start considering the issue, the more choices they have. So if people only start thinking about it 2 years before their kids go to school, by then they have determined the area they live in, the size of their mortgage etc and unless they make drastic changes quickly, don't have so many options. If people think about it 8 years before kids go to school (so before they are born) they can factor school fees into their choice of area to live, size of mortgage, savings etc.....they simply put themselves in a financial position to be more able to pay for it ......if that is something they want to do. It is true that some people on moderate incomes (and these are still high compared to the majority) can afford it because they saved hard for a decade before their kids went to school, they live in smaller houses and have a less expensive lifestyle. They gave themself the option by financially planning ahead and through their choices. This is for those marginal middle classes who have good solid incomes, not people for whom whatever choices they make, it will still never be affordable.

Well put Chocolate

A family member put both children through private edication by not moving out of their first family home shen their wages went up.

We saved enough to pay the first years fees upfront, then started saving for the following year. It gives me a years grace if something goes wrong and I need to look at other options. It also gets me a 5% discount and helps me sleep at night. Our fees are 15k for two of them so half yours.

We have a good income, but don't have big holidays or an expensive lifestyle.

We paid all school fees (11-18) up front with a lump sum. This meant we were protected from increases in school fees and there were no concerns that changing circumstances might affect our ability to pay. When one DC wanted to change schools at sixteen, the school refunded the difference.

"We paid 40%. On our joint income of over £350k"

So good to know that bursaries are going to children in real need, this justifying private school's charitable status.

Means testing means a whole different thing in public schools! We were encouraged to count all or outgoings, so that on paper it appeared that we had minimal disposable income. You could only have a 'means tested' bursary if you had 'won' a scholarship.

I would either like all children to be given a voucher to use for schools of their choice, with poorer children being given a much higher amount, or all people over a certain income level to pay towards their school. As things are c. £5000 allowance per student in the state sector is not enough.

Oxfam clothes, no car, no holidays etc does not in itself cover the fees, but no higher mortgage in an affluent area where there is a good state school may well cover fees especially when added to no car, holidays or clothes.

There are some very well off people going to state schools in some affluent areas. There are people in a much lower income bracket than these sending their child/children to city private day schools.

Of course for most families there is no question of going to a private school even with these things, especially if they have several children.

Chocolate I think you explained the marginal position of some families in regard to their being able to send their children to a private school very well.

Okay. When ds went aged 8 fees were about £8k pa. We reckoned they would increase to about £14,000 by the time he was 18. It was closer to £18,000 pa (£21,000 with extras). London day school.

When he was 8 our house was valuable and our mortgage small. We knew if the chips were down we could move five miles out, pay off the mortgage and have enough left over for two dc. At the time we had also saved three/four years fees and I had only just gone back to work so we anticipated my earnings would increase.

I just have this (daft) romantic notion of the children being at school with many of the same kids from Prep to Upper Sixth
Yup, and if they end up disliking most of their small cohort by the second year they are buggered.

Its why I'm glad mine attended state schools

• 30 per year in Primary
• 300 per year in secondary
• 2000 per year in 6th form

they have been able to choose their friends from among the cohort

I'm not in touch with ANYBODY from my private secondary school as it was a very unhappy 7 years.

*I just have this (daft) romantic notion of the children being at school with many of the same kids from Prep to Upper Sixth
Yup, and if they end up disliking most of their small cohort by the second year they are buggered.

Its why I'm glad mine attended state schools

• 30 per year in Primary
• 300 per year in secondary
• 2000 per year in 6th form

they have been able to choose their friends from among the cohort

I'm not in touch with ANYBODY from my private secondary school as it was a very unhappy 7 years.*

That's sad to hear Talkin. I am state school educated from a very rural area and a very small school, and many of my closest friends today were at school with me on my first day of primary school, right through to upper school. DH on the other hand is state educated also but hasn't seen any of his school friends in over a decade. I guess it's horses for courses.

Its the way it is
and FWIW despite having gone to private school I'm not in the least bit fussed that I could not afford private by a million miles
because I'm lucky enough to live in a Comp county so my kids got the same grades as they would have got at private school
and my disposable cash has been there to enrich their education
(music, sport, travel, trips, extras all that guff)

Not all private schools have massive hidden costs. Our DC go to an excellent independent primary school and there really aren't many other costs. Lunches are obligatory but reasonable and good, school trips are free, uniform can be £££ but there are regular second hand sales and genuinely no snobbishness about using them, almost all clubs are free (or lower cost than if you took a similar class outside school) etc etc.

People pay by
-downsizing
-stopping working (one parent, so save on nursery fees for other children)
-only having one child
-grandparents
-both being in well paid jobs.

Personally, DH earns extremely well so we can afford it. But we don't take expensive holidays, don't buy all the latest 'stuff' etc. We don't have huge outgoings other than school (mortgage is fairly high but we own a second property, bought when we were both in professional jobs, from which we make an income), so it's not painful to pay the fees.

hmmmm I had twins so one child not possible to plan!

DD was at a private school for primary. The majority of her school friends parents paid fees out of their income. Some for instance bonuses which paid all the fees for several years ahead. I would get a couple of hundred pounds which would pay to replace something that had broken down. At least one person had downsized to a flat to pay. We used a combination of lodgers, no holidays, small savings pot and income. We couldn't afford to do anything other than essential work on the house so it got tatty over the course of 7 years. It is amazing what dinks in laminate can be covered with a rug and what rips in sofa covering can be hidden by a throw.. For secondary DD is very happy in her state school and we are planning a programme of refurbishment which is well overdue.

When we started out in the private route - it made sense, dc 1 was in nursery. The annual cost of the school was less than the annual cost of the nursery! Also the wraparound care available, including holiday clubs meant that I could continue to work; it was an easy transition.

Now we have 2 older children, it's eye-watering. Luckily, my ability to continue working when they were younger meant that my career has stayed on track and progressed, so our household income is higher than average. But yes, we do still drive the same car as we purchased 13 years ago and we do holiday in the UK, for the most part. It would be foolish to think that these savings alone can offset school fees, but it all helps.

Why are people confusing scholarships with bursaries on this thread? They are completely different and are not means tested.

I fail to see how one parent stopping working so as to avoid nursery fees can fund school fees. 😂 any saving in nursery fees would surely be offset by the reduction in salary.
You may save £15k Nursery fees but if you lose a £30k salary where is the saving that can be spent on school fees? It doesn't make sense.

I don't believe that anything on £350k would be awarded a bursary.

I might be unusual but my ds has two friends, one on 100% bursary at Tonbridge school and one on 100% at Sevenoaks.
My sister has three out of her four boys on 90% bursaries at London schools.

These are not exceptional boys academically either. They do have pushy parents who to some extent have played the system because they are engaged, but financially the families are all dirt poor.