What % of your monthly income do you spend on school fees?

[Heatherbell1978]

DH and I are seriously considering sending 2 DCs to private school after primary. They're 1 and 3 so we have a lot of time to plan and it's only something we've recently considered. Our state primary school is excellent but high school is just ok. I went to a similar performing high school in the area and hated every minute of it but did leave with decent results which got me to uni.
At the moment we pay £2.3k per month combined for our mortgage and Nursery fees. We're overpaying our mortgage so it should be repaid in 9 years when DS would be starting high school so technically we have this £2.3k to spend on school fees which would cover the two kids but they won't both be there at the same time (only for 3 years they would) so most of the time it would be half that. Our take home pay is £6k a month so this would be 30% of our salary for 2 of them but with no mortgage. Not sure if this is reasonable or we'd struggle with all the extra costs involved. Interested to hear other people's situations.

We have opted to go for our local state secondary school and save the money for uni fees/helping with house deposit instead of private secondary (kids are at private primary). School fees usually start off low and get higher and higher as you go through the school - at ours the fees for reception are around £3k a year, that rises steadily to around £20k a year by the end of secondary. Not to mention the yearly increases as well. If you are confident you can pay the maximum amount with cash to spare (for uniform and trips), it should be doable.

Our take home is 8k and I am still thinking about it as we like holidays, we are not so young and could be saving more for pension, also would like to be free to quit jobs if we get tired of them and not to have fees commitments. But know lots of other people that do it; it really depends on your options and if you are willing to compromise some other things; also, do you have savings?

We each used to earn £ 3,000 a month net (so £ 6,000 / month combined) and have 1 child at private school, fees 850/month after scholarship discount. My husband has been made redundant so we are living just off my salary so school fees 28% of income. We can do it but it is tight. And we only have one child and no mortgage. So I would say you need to factor for unforeseen circumstances like redundancy.

This is a thing it's really, really not sensible to think of in percentage terms. What matters is what you need to live on at a level you can be happy with, and what the fees will be. The former depends a lot on what you're used to - I'm always amused by the mumsnetters who "can't afford" school fees but can afford all kinds of things we don't have because we're paying school fees instead.

Are you both working for money at the moment? If so, one way to think about it might be: if you only had one salary coming in, could you still cope? If so, you could consider thinking of the other salary as paying the fees. If you know well any families with just one earner, earning about the same as the one you'd be notionally living on, that can be reassuring, and it can be quite thought-provoking to get into the habit of noticing the differences between their lifestyle and that of families you know with two such earners. Provided you're happy with the lower spending (and know that family well enough to know they don't have a private income too!), that's a pretty good indicator that you'd be fine.

There are loads of threads about this.

The key thing isn't the percentage. You need to work out how much of your income is needed for housing costs and other childcare, plus living expenses and things you aren't prepared to go without. Quite simply then you can see if there is enough left over for fees.

New look at nursery or reception fees but look at the fees for older year groups which are higher and build in 5% increase per year (Compound) to spot that fees today can have increased by close to 50% in around 7 years.

I don't have figures to hand but at a very rough guess we're paying at least 50% in school fees, after bursaries. In practice this is only being met by a gradual withdrawal of savings.

We are seriously considering this too and have children the same age.

We have drawn up a spreadsheet setting out the costs each year based on a 5% rise in fees each year.
It is not for the faint hearted.

We are fortunate to have already paid off our mortgage and have decent savings - I don't think I would want to head down the private route if we were solely relying on our income to pay the fees each term.

Plus I would have a look at finances and see whether over paying your mortgage is the best thing to do. I find the moneysavingexpert forum really useful in this respect.

12% of net pay, or thereabouts.

I've been doing different budgets but with 6k take home pay, I wouldn't fork out for fees as I'd prioritise a big house ( high bills), having a cleaner and at least 1-2 holidays a year and other lifestyle things that wouldn't leave enough for fees. But maybe we're pretty indulgent as at 6k and no mortgage, I couldn't even allocate a penny to savings Lol

I'd also say that if you're pretty set on the independent sector for later, you'd be better not to overpay your mortgage. Interest rates are extremely low so you'd be better off putting money into stocks and shares ISAs where you'll likely earn a lot more than the 1-2% saved on the mortgage. If interest change in the future, you could always re-allocate your investments then to get rid of the mortgage. But anyway, paying fees out of your monthly income isn't generally advisable. You should have a handy pot saved up so you don't fret about illness, redundancy or some other bf expenses.

DD's fees are 10% of our income. We save 40% of our income and the rest is spent on living ( mortgage, holidays, activities etc). Given you have an excellent primary school nearby, my inclination would be to go with that, save hard and revisit when it comes to high schools. Plenty of kids mive from state to independent at that stage. DS attends an outstanding primary academy and he's getting a fabulous education the, better than in many private school I think ( I visit both for my work). It means that we have an 'extra' 1k to spend on holidays and luxuries and I don't have to work full time.

Ours is more like 45% of our income. But we have almost paid off our mortgage so that's not a pressure. And we have zero interest in materialistic stuff, so don't care that our car is uncool or that every single item of DS's clothes for an upcoming school trip is from Primark.

Thanks for your responses. Yes we do have a bit in savings and my plan would be to save up a 'school fees fund' over the next 9 years. We could actually save £25k solely by putting aside the difference in Nursery fees as they reduce and carry on saving the Nursery fees we currently pay. We also get bonuses we can use to add to it. The schools we're looking at are currently £1k per month (c £12k per year for senior school) which for one is very manageable for us when our mortgage is repaid. So it's just the 3 years that the 2 kids are there at the same time really and we're hoping our fund that we build up could help with this.

My main worry is just how much the school fees will increase over time so I'll factor in 5% pa like the previous poster suggests.

It's definitely something we'll revisit at the time. I guess I always assumed private school was something just the very privileged did. I wouldn't put myself in that category so I'm just a bit surprised that it's something we might be able to afford.

It's too late for you but we saved for a few years into ISAs to build a pot and sadly my parents died so some of that went into the pot too.

You're not 'very privileged' but you're definitely well off. The average family of 4 has a take home pay after tax (incl council tax) of 3.5k so you're way above that. And 12k a year are really low fees... We recently looked up our old schools and you'd barely get a term for that.

That sounds like a good plan. What the ability to pay gives you is choice - if when the time comes you decide your state option is either the best school for your DC, or close enough to that that fees don't seem worth it, you don't have to spend the money, great.

People saying they could afford fees but they'd prioritise a house deposit for their children or whatever must, I think, never have been in the situation where the state school offered is really, miserably unsuitable for their child's needs. Lucky them,

Fwiw I doubt you'd even feel in the lower half of the income range at most independent schools, with income like that - you've just picked up a mistaken impression somehow.

JoJoSM2 I'm in Edinburgh and the most expensive private day school is £26k per year. There are a few co-ed day schools around the £12k pa mark, all with excellent reputations which I would say most of the private school population attend. It does seem cheaper than a lot of the fees I see discussed on MN. Ideally I'd love to know how the fees have increased over the previous 9 years...might need to do some digging.

usr67 I wouldn't say my local state school is horrendous. It's similar to the school I attended which got me to uni and I'm sure my children would succeed well at it. But I know I could have done better at a private school. I was bullied and very distracted for the first 4 years due to unruly kids and I just wasn't on anyone's radar. I'm fairly sporty but had no opportunities to pursue this as I wasn't popular enough to get chosen for teams and ended up just being 'ill' during PE. Then scraped the grades for uni by studying my exams the night before...I think if teachers had nurtured me a bit I'd have been a lot more confident and successful at school.
I just don't want my kids to have the same school experience so if we can offer them something better I'd like to do that.

Heather, a lot of what you're talking about happens at home not at school. Things like developing aspirations, work ethic or drive to do sports or succeed in life. There are children in fee paying schools that have no interests or hobbies and gaps in basic knowledge. Admittedly, though, it's easier to get involved with sports in an indie than a state as it's more of a done thing.

It’s about 10% of net income I think on average but as we are SE it varies
We are in Yorkshire and dd has a part scholarship though so the fees aren’t too bad

I guess I always assumed private school was something just the very privileged did

The if you are on combined take home of 6k a month you may not be 'privilidged' but you are a lot better off than most!

Only 6th form yrs. Will be 20% of gross (for just one DC). Would be 28% if Grandparents weren't helping (I presume they will keep their word on that). If grandparents don't help, will be ~35% of net income.

MNers said I was extremely entitled & selfish to even think about applying for a bursary.

Nil
planning another overseas holiday though

Heather my DC are at one of the Edinburgh day schools (S1 & S4). There are some extras around the £12k fees which I would assume are common across the Edinburgh privates- fairly expensive uniform (though there is a second hand shop), books, trips etc but I’ve not found them to add too much to the cost. Our biggest extra is the school bus to/from West Lothian!

Please factor in the annual increase, which can be huge. DD1 boarded for the last four years of school and fees went up by £9K in those four years, largely because the school was building a new boarding house (finished the year after DD1 left...) and the building was clearly funded by fees.