Anyone sacrifice to pay 1500 worth of school fees a month?

[hercules1]

Long story but if you pay this amount is it because you have it to spare or because you go without and work bloody hard?

Most of the parent who send their kids where mine go are teachers, nurses, RAF, doctors, the odd self employed, some solicitors etc.

Not on their uppers but not filthy rich either.

Lots of crap cars

Ours aren't that much fortunately - yet. We're not particularly extravagant in other ways and have saved over past years before having the kids. May go back to work pt (if ever find anything suitable) to help avoid dipping into savings and still have nice holidays etc if needs be.

Where we live the only old cars are the ones at school

I suppose we are making a sacrifice in many peoples' eyes in that we don't own our own home and don't have any significant savings.

However, we do have generous life insurance for each of us which covers loss of income through illness and we have savings to cover short term absence from work.

It is a serious commitment though, so sometimes wonder about how we could keep the fees up if we were to seperate for any reason (not on the cards at all, but I think a lot). I guess you need a buffer zone....

Not sure how we could create a buffer zone though.

We don't pay that amount. DD's primary school fees will be £2400 a term from September, a little less this year. She started last September, and will go onto secondary independent too.

DH is a solicitor and is paid a very good salary for his work. He will be an equity partner next April also, which will help again. I work part time too earning a pretty good part time wage, although I may reduce my hours (and therefore pay) again next April.

We are lucky as we do not go without. We still holiday and have a nice house. We have two smallish but new cars, and we can go out and buy things when and if we need.

When we first planned for her to go we were on lower salaries and we knew that whilst we could afford to end one, two would be veyr difficult. I guess this was our sacrifice to an extent - although it helped make the decision as I was unable to concieve #2 anyway. Because of DH's promotion however - which we did always know was on the cards at some point in the future - we could now afford two at the school.

The others families in DD's class are mixed. Some obviously have a lot of money and others are making some form of sacrifice. There's quite a mix andit is very few are really rolling in money. Lots of older cars in our car park too!

We pay half this with one DD so around £850 a month we have a low mortgage, we're not having the loft conversion we'd like, getting a newer car etc etc, my daughter doesn't do many activities outside school. With two incomes, we have had enough to travel in the past, but as my DP's family live overseas, we need to be able to do this ... We're OK as long as we're both bringing in an income!!

Oh, another thing. Due to some good house sales in he past , and cashing in all our savings, we don't have a morgage.

Which is, effectivly, our buffer zone.

This was done through hard graft mind, not an inheritance or anything

Thanks for all messages. We could do the primary now with ease but need to work out the extra grand on top.

We can pay so much, but also put whatever we need on the mortgage.

For us, it is 1200 a month for one child.

We used to pay £980 a month for DS's nursery (6 years ago), so yes, I'd pay £1500 a month for school fees if that was the only option available. Luckily, I don't have to do that as DS is at a great state school.

well I heard somewhere something lkike 70% of kids at private schools are funded by grandparents anyway.

That's what we will be hioping for (considering my grandma paid for my brothers education - I was a girl so didn't count!!) If we choose this route. ATM DH is idelogically opposed to private school, although he went (and I did for a while), but DD1 will not get into the grammer school (dd2 possibly will) and I reeally think it might work for her.

I know some of DD's school friend's fees are paid for by grandparents on godparents. Majority are paid for my parents though from what I can gather.

Some of ours are fully paid up by grandparents from the outset

Wow! I need to go and find new parents!

You and me both!

To be fair, nice wife of my Hideous late FIL (step mum to dh) Did offer to help if I have problems.

I imagine most people work bloody hard for it. Although I do know of a couple of people who don't really feel the pinch.

As a parent you do all you can for your child
but does that mean you give your life to them and then resent them if they call themselves an 'arteest' and make weird pots that never sell.extreme perhaps but the gist is there. do you give everything you have to their lives or do you do everything you can to have a great life with your children.

They might not be mutually exclusive?

I thin tat , as with everything in the parenting biz, you have to compromise.

We live well, I don't begrudge the amount we spned on the kids education, after all we are fortunate enough to make the choice to do so.

We also have a very nice life. I don't feel hard done by, but OTOH, I'm not a great one for posh clothers and cars and stuff anyway.

yes, my parents kept our family in deep poverty by "sacrificing" everything to pay school fees.
Speaking from the child's point of view, I really dont think it was worth it. They should have spent the money on buying a few houses instead, my life would be much easier today.

hercules, don't worry about school trips.

If in desperate need i.e. cannot afford to pay for 'standard trips' i.e. those associated with school curriculum, 'fess up to school and see what they say.

IME there aren't lots of kids on the 'extras' trips anyway. E.g. maybe couple of dozen, from 200+, go trekking in India. Worst from what I have seen is sports tours which have recently been run to Oz, Bahamas, Canada but there is usually fundraising to go with these beforehand e.g sporting dinner, auction, raffle, brochure put out where parents who have a business pay to advertise and wish the team well.

Have it spare.. I wish!
Three in primary at £1800 a term brings water to my eyes ( will present my cheque to school in the morning.)

Actually having to find this money works in a positive way; my business has had to grow to support these fees.

In my experience every 5th year in business is a disaster.. and this year has all the signs of being one! So I have sold a horse bought v cheap in F&M year and gone into the red.

Like MB our mortgage is negligable which does give us a great deal of flexability.

DW is keen to send all 3 on to private second schools but this offers far less value for money in my mind.. and my accountants!

Many people at the school really suffer financial hardship to keep the kids them and generally the harder the parents work the nicer the kids..(follows that my kids are the nicest in the school!)

WelshBoris -love your summary - this a slow Sunday night so of course this thread will be hijacked tomorrow by the ususal suspects with their own agenda - am very impressed that so far people actually do seem to be answering OP orignal question and not using a as political forum - a first on mumsnet!!!!!
We couldn't figure out intially how we would pay nursey fees - at that time 12k pa per child out of taxed income - seemed impossible. We joked at the time we could send'em to Eton for that. And how we celebrated when they went to PS and the fees stopped (at state primary)- but actually what we did was start saving for secondary fees as there are no decent state primaries in Richnond where we live.
As education is our first priority, like martianbishop we will cut out other stuff unitl the pips squeak.

Quick aside to MB. Will the school not help out with your school fees after DH's death? I only ask because my ex-BF was 11yo when his father died and his school waived the fees for the rest of his education - he'd only been there about half a term. And last year I did the same for one of our pre-school families (I'm Chair).

Our fees work out at about 3500/month for 9 months of the year (the other 3 months we put a sum of money into an account to even the job out)
We have a relatively frugal lifstyle apart from the fees - my car has done nearly 100000 miles, out holiday thei year will be a week in a friends cottage in this country (cost about £100 +food) I'm not into expensive clothing, don't do beauticians etc.
We pay it all out of earned income, no grandparental help or inherited riches, but I think it is quite common for granparents to help out.