How do I begin to plan a budget for private schooling?

[HJ40]

DS is only 18 months but we're already having a lot of discussions about schooling (and possibly should have done so already!). I see myself as fortunate to have gone to private school because my parents were overseas, and enjoyed the huge breadth of experiences it gave me. DH went to his local comprehensive, didn't love it, but did well and we both ended up at similar unis. Ultimately, we are now in similar jobs. (Which doesn't help my frequent feelings of not having achieved the potential my education might have expected, but that's a separate topic).

I think before we can have a thorough discussion, we need to know if it's even financially viable. I think it could be, but might be a stretch, and the last thing I want to do is start something we can't continue.

How can I begin to work out a long term budget to see if it's feasible?

This video from Killik and Co may help. It was done a couple of weeks ago based on actual figures for 2 children both boarding from 13.
m.youtube.com/watch?v=PXVJ84pppvE

Look at the fees.
Apply a 5% increase for each year plus assume a bump usually at year 3, year 7 and year 12
basically they will double between reception and upper sixth

maybe add £1000 per year for lunch, uniform and other costs.

remember this is out of taxed income

Also are you planning to have any other children?

Starting at what age?

Also remember that when the time comes the private school you have in mind may just not be right for your DC. If you have another, consider you may be dealing with 2 different schools.

How can I begin to work out a long term budget to see if it's feasible?

If you're wondering, you can't, you just need to kick your guilt, and it'll also have the additional benefit of not giving your DC a chance to get that guilt.

Use the money to get a huge breadth of experience that that can provide, without wasting it providing a profit to the schools.

Visit your local schools now.

We chose 3 likely options and visited from about a year old. We asked for the fee structure in all
3 schools from reception to upper 6 and then we monitored past inflation rises plus the 3 years we had before he started school. We knew of those 3 which offer a sibling discount. Which have the most holidays to cover. Which include lunch. What the uniform cost is like. What the extras are. The. We spreadsheeted it out to 18 with 5% inflation built in.

We find it very motivating to ensure we have the money available. It's not a stretch as such in that we still have holidays but I recently chose a new car and went for a 3 year old Ford Fiesta rather than the Audi I might have had if we'd gone state.

Don't be afraid to ask questions. Also now many kids will you have? We knew 2 was ok but theee would stretch us so have stopped at 2.

How much do you earn and do you have at least £16,000 a year you don’t need to spend on other things? This is the answer to your question

If you're even vaguely in the region to be able to afford this, you need to see a decent financial advisor/wealth manager. They will tell you whether it's possible, or you're dreaming, and if it's feasible they will tell you what you need to do to make it happen. They will take into account life insurance, pension needs etc too.

Take the tuition now, add 5% a year for inflation until your child is school age. Add (as suggested) £1000 for uniform and lunch. Divide by 12. That is what you need monthly to cover schooling. Add 5% year on year until 18. What will be your salaries over the years? What if one of you loses your job? What if you take time out to have another baby? Childcare? Private school holidays are long. Could you afford to send both?
If you have a decent primary near you would you not consider sending your child there first? Then perhaps save and move when child is in Y7? Or if doing great and there's a good state secondary keep them there?
I sent both mine private (we did try and get my son into the nearest four state schools for reception but didn't get into any). It helped my son in non academic ways, and I believe it will boost my daughters GCSE results by a grade (hard working but shy and could possibly be overlooked at a state school - private more competitive so she pushes herself more).

Also if you can it's ideal to have a year's fees in the bank. Then if some disaster happens (job/health wise) you have breathing space and if necessary can move them to state at the end of the academic year not in a rush.

Maybe......

State to year 6. Save . Tutor year 5 onwards , private in year 7.

I perslnally find the 1000 pounds for extras per year very low (wishing that would be us right now!). If you value music, budget for more, as 1 instrument a year would already be about 1000 p.a. incl. instrument hire, aural lessons, exam fees, music books, odd extra lesson in holidays. If you have a musical DC take it times 2 or 3, depending on number of instruments. Also, would you budget in anything from the list of horse riding, figure skating, fencing, skiing club, shooting, rugby or cricket tour ... I have come to regret a bit that my DCs schools offer so many opportunities as they add up , especially if you have more than 1 DC. After school club and breakfast club is usually an extra fee, too, with 2 hours afterschool club/day (20 pound/session)coming in at over 1000 pounds/term at my DC schools and another £250 for breakfast club per term. Then there is school bus (750 pounds per term at DD's school, 250 pounds per term at ds school) or cost of driving them. And vast majority of parents tutor in preparation for entrance tests, that's another 2000 pounds/year. So for 1 music loving, school bus taking DC I must have paid over 5000 pounds in extras over the last school year on top of 18k fees. The 18k are relatively low in comparison with other local prep schools which seem to charge about 21k pa. I resist looking at a spreadsheet that shows me what the 18k look like in 10 years with 5% annual increase. We'll be looking in 8 years at ca 65k per year (for 2 dc), up from ca 45k at the moment for 2 DC. And that's only for the cheapest day school in the county and assuming they only go up by 4 to 5%/year.

Like others I would assume a 5% increase per year at least. The extra depends very much on the school - at least for primary sometimes there are financial advantages in that there are cheap after school clubs - in my area at the state school the after school care is massively over subscribed. However you also have to factor in longer school holidays so the kids will be off before local holiday clubs begin which can be difficult if you both work. Different schools will have different cultures in terms of extras - some schools have lots of parents who are giving up on holidays and nice cars to pay fees. Some have a higher proportion for whom the fees are a drop in the ocean.

I would also look carefully at your local area to ensure private is the best option. If you have excellent state primaries with the benefit of local friends etc you can always offer you kids plenty of extra curricular activities outside of school (if the class room is chaotic and the teaching isn't great it's much less easy to compensate for that outside of school).

If you live in a grammar area and end up with a very academic child a grammar might be better suited to them than a private. (Conversely if they're less academic and more sporty/creative they would be better off in a private than struggling academically in a grammar).

At least at primary level for my kids we pay nowhere near 1000 a year for extra for each child. The most expensive trip was £40. There is an optional ski trip (£500) but only about 30% go.

I'd also look at how likely it is that you'll be very stretched - it's not easy for children if their friends have a lot more materially than they have.

Save £1300 per month from now until he is 10. Assumes you won’t need private primary.

It's difficult OP. If you're considering private primary (and you shouldn't assume that private is better - look carefully at the options on offer). Then by now you should be putting away a monthly amount equal to the school fees. This will give you an idea of how manageable it is and will also give you a buffer of a few years fees. You should also include in the amount you put aside the cost of extras (at primary in my experience this isn't massive - my DC's are at prep and you can buy uniform second hand and the only substantial cost is music lessons. This obviously varies though from school to school). As PP said be prepared for at least a 5% increase per year but it could be higher (if the fees haven't increased for a number of years there may well be a jump). Consider job security. It would be horrible to have to remove your child from a school in Y5 when they're settled.

The other way to look at it is in terms of what income level - we live in London with mortgage. Run one car and 1-2 holidays abroad a year. At one stage we had one DC at private and one income of £120k. On paper it should have been affordable but it was a struggle to afford music lessons and other extras. I think someone on another thread speculated that income of £350k is when two DC at private secondary with all the extras, living in London is comfortable. I would have to agree - obvs one can do it for much less but if we were making massive sacrifices in terms of enjoying day to day life then in my opinion private would not be with it. I would stick with a state school and go on holiday and eat out! Everyone’s priorities are different of course.

We’ve been looking at this for our small people in detail. Our strategy is to go state for primary and move into the private sector at secondary level. This gives us time to save. We have gone into it saying we will only do it if we have saved up a large lump sum so we are never paying more than one set of fees at once. We will also limit children to 2.

We originally budgeted for minimal costs when our children were in primary school. I’ve since realised I’ll be paying a good chunk in wrap-around care and holiday clubs. Don’t just assume that once nursery fees are gone, you’ll have loads of money. We have probably under budgeted for extras once they’re there but hopefully will have some wiggleroom elsewhere in the budget.

For us, there will be a decade of investing but there will still be choices to be made. Big, luxury holidays are the main thing we’ll miss out on as well as major house improvements. We have budgeted on me staying part-time rather than full time and assumed a 5% rise in all costs.

The numbers on the spreadsheet are frightening. We could possibly stretch to do private primary too but the impact on our lifestyle would be too great for us personally.

Also some people are willing to remortgage their house for fees. We are both not willing to do that.

The prep school my DD went to included lunch and some after school clubs in the fees. So check what schools are including because rock bottom fees mean loads of extras. We did have extras for music and dance and trips. Skiing was a right of passage!

You might find prepping (tutoring) for secondary school is also expensive and very competitive in London. People don’t seem to do this well enough for some parents who pay tutors and fees. Entry to Independent Secondary schools seem less competitive in the shires!

I would not cut out everything for fees/saving. If you can save the equivalent of current fees you should get close as you have quite a few years to go but if you start private at 3/4 it will come around very quickly.

However you do need advice on the best saving scheme. I do know people who didn’t save enough and downsized to pay the fees! The DD stopped boarding and went as a day pupil to another school which was disruptive to her education. So if you can do it easily and more DC are not on the horizon, go for it. But don’t sacrifice everything!

Thank you very much everyone for all of the information. There's tons here for me to work through, which I obviously haven't had a chance to do yet, but this is all very useful.

keep your lifestyle expectations modest, and put your excess income into savings, whenever you get a payrise or promotion divert the extra funds into savings. do this for a year and see where it puts you.

often the fees at reception/y1/y2 are pretty similar to nursery fees and it's not too difficult to keep the momentum going so long as your career and earning power keeps pace with the staircasing fees.

if your income is a bit more borderline you can use free state education for the first 3-7 years (there's even a catchphrase "state till eight") - you can save all your spare income for a few years and then spend down the savings for the remainder of the schooling years.

start going to school open days early - at least 3 years before you need to actually decide.

Check what is included, as DDs school includes meals and school trips. Some extra curricular are also included and you can decide beginning of term to sign up for those which aren't.

The biggest question is always going to be whether the cash investment is best spent on their education in this way or whether it would be put to better use in another way. DH and I are both state educated, both have degrees and PhDs from RG unis, both in decent careers (mine has taken a bartering having DC, but DH is older than me, was more established, and is frankly stellar). Both of our parents have friends whose DC did the whole private thing but they haven’t really achieved anything astounding or out of the ordinary. If we have oodles of money when we get to secondary we might choose private, but I still think I would rather provide tons of extra curricular to support a good state education, and a healthy deposit for a house

Don’t forget to factor in the cost of childcare if you’re both working. Private schools have around 20 weeks of holidays that you’ll need to cover, more if you also need after school care - it’s not always provided or best for the child. Most schools assume that a parent is at home, you’ll also need to be prepared to go in at least once a week for matches, concerts, plays, galas, show and share etc etc so if you don’t have flexible jobs youll struggle with this. The childcare costs to cover time away from school can quickly mount up to £10,000+ depending on where you are and what you need, again after tax

I am intrigued by you saying what you could have achieved. If both you are in similar jobs why couldn’t it be that your partner did as well as you despite not going to private school?