If you have DC at private secondary school...

[tomhazard]

How do you pay for it? I'm not asking about your salary - just whether if a relative pays it for you, if you saved for it or if you pay it out your income? Or some other way?

We have 2 young DC (about to be year 1 and nursery) and we would like to have the option of private school for secondary. We live in an area where there is little choice in secondary schools and the one we would have to send our DC to is not good. Moving would be challenging because of DH work.

We are not very wealthy although good earners. Right now we couldn't afford it but we are planning to overpay on our mortgage so we would have much more spare income by the time DD1 is coming up for 11.
I do work in a private school myself and if I am still here by then, they could come here and I would get a 50% discount. Still the equivalent of full fees for the three years we would have 2 DC there though so needs some financial planning.

Oh and if you do pay from your own income, is this a source of anxiety for you? Should your job be lost or income dwindles unexpectedly?

Private primary.
I take a regular dividend as a director of our family business and save it and that pays school fees. It’s not my job- I do something else for a living.
We only have one child and part of the reason is school fees.

And no, I don’t feel anxious about school fees - we could afford from our own income if we had to but would have to cut back to do so.

We pay for the fees ourselves, and no I don't worry about it.

We are sufficiently skilled to find other jobs if something went wrong. We also have a savings. We planned our finances around the children's education including all the potential increases from the ages of 2-21 with care.

DH pays for his DS (my DSS) from his salary or upfront for the year from his bonus.

I went to private school and my mother also paid upfront for the year but I know that's rare.

From income, and as DH still owns his premarital flat, we wouid sell that if earnings went tits up. So I don't particularly worry.

Dd is year 5 in a private school. We have a few private schools in our area and we intend to move him to a cheaper one for senior school. We pay the fees from our income and yes sometimes we get anxious about it.

I’m just preparing to send ds to private senior school because both the state schools here are in special measures.

I realised the problem about 6 years ago, and have been saving as much as I can ever since. I have a job that would just about cover the fees if we only ate beans on toast, and if all else fails I am sufficiently old that I could take some out of my pension to cover any shortfall.
But yes, my top concern is making sure I can pay for the whole seven years so ds can have continuity.

Seniorschoolmum this is me, realising about 6 years in advance! I had a vague awareness of it when I was pregnant with DD1 but our priority was affording a house at the time, which was in this area.

When you say you save , have you saved several years or just some to contribute towards?

We pay the fees out of salary. We had five in the system for three years and that was tricky. We dipped into house equity.

We are down to the last six terms!

So far I’ve managed to save about 3 years fees, stashed away in ISAs.

We just paid out of our salary - but had exceptional bursary and scholarships so only about £24k each per year plus trips, uniform and extras.

I have three, two in senior. I pay out of salary. It's a big expenditure: I need to make £100k + gross to manage fees and of course it occurs to me that something might happen and this would become difficult.

That said it's like any big expenditure. You can't dwell on the future or you'd drive yourself mad.

My dad is helping with fees. I see that as advance inheritance. I suspect my step-sisters will get it all, tbh, if I don't get something now.

The rest of the fees from our savings. Only paying for 1/4 kids so I view it as an advance on that DC's inheritance (this DC begged for the posh private school). Not anxious, we have savings to cover fees even if I lose my job.

We have savings partly b/c I did get a big inheritance already. Also very frugal habits for 30+ yrs, but then all that is partly why we can't get a bursary, too.

Out of income. I am self-employed in a high cost area, I earn 100K+ and it can be tight some months.

Oh yes I only have the one DC. Watch fee increases not just annual rises, but key point rises so often years 10 and 11 are more expensive than 7-9.

I'm not at that stage yet but know from colleagues that lots of them have a pot of money ear marked for private education. Others pay out of their salary and are usually one year a head in school fees (so they have the following years school fees saved but not the entire 5 years).

Used to pay out of salary (salary sacrifice scheme as kids were at my school) but now they are at a different school, have had to remortgage! Salary does not cover the fees but covers mortgage repayments.

Invested extra borrowing in higher interest accounts which will offset cost of borrowing in the first place.

We pay from salary by dd monthly
We do have 1 years fees put aside though in case of emergencies as well as other savings and investments we could access if necessary
Only dd is there now but in a couple of years we will have a 1 year overlap when 2 dc will be there. Dd has a 25% scholarship which helps and while I doubt DS would get one he will get a small sibling discount.
Luckily both dc got a place in a good State Primary so we could use that time to save up fees
We are also in Yorkshire which helps as fees are quite low but luckily due to our business our wages aren’t

We only have 1 child and our income is comfortable but not high. My son has a 50% academic scholarship which is not means tested. The balance comes from savings we had accumulated over about 6 years. He has only been in private since year 7 which helped. If he had not got the level of scholarship he would have gone to state school.

We pay from income but keep a separate savings account (which is separate to.our other savings) in which we keep at least 2 years fees in case of problems re jobs but have never had to tuck into it. Last DC about to go into 6th form so we are going to prepay fees for the 2 years!

We pay monthly out of income, ever since dcs were at nursery. Both dh and I are ft earners and both dcs are now in senior school.

A few years ago, my father gave each of the dcs a lump sum to cover school fees after my dh lost his job. With dcs in private school and big mortgage, you would literally burn through cash. Funnily, taking the dcs out of private school in that situation was the last thing we wanted. We would have probably zero-ed our savings and downsized the house first.

Luckily dh landed on his feet pretty quickly and we are back on track financially. The lump sum gift from my father is untouched and we have invested it for the dcs.

Drawings from out family business which we both are partners in.

Not too worried as my parents have a discretionary trust fund set up. It's like a family fund for if anything goes wrong. It could pay fees for us.

We paid from earned income or took a bit of “profit” (unearned income) out of our managed portfolio. We could have used the portfolio but never needed to. We just didn’t reinvest every penny occasionally. DH was self employed so never absolutely certain of earnings but we never really had any problems.

If beneficiaries are going to pay ££££ of inheritance tax, then grandparents can help with fees to lessen the burden. Can also make tax efficient gifts.

We have friends who saved specifically for fees but it ran out. Fees increased and they chose an expensive school. It’s difficult to know how good these schemes are. Our investments did way better!

Paid in full upfront, for a discount and a calculated rate of increase which means that, after 5 years, we're still getting a small credit (set against other costs, eg music) every term. Money came from our own savings (late baby).