Private schools - take home pay

[Ohtheplacesyougo]

Hello

I have one child and thinking of moving to prep school as I’m running out of time with childcare, homework, tea and juggling work. I think I will be the hindrance if she goes to the local school.

Child is quite sporty and outdoorsy and loves the sports on offer and the DT lab.

Wouldn’t be until Yr 3 and I aim to save two years of fees should anything happen job wise.

mortgage will be about 1.5 x salary and manageable and say 75 per cent equity. Have mortgage outstanding, similar amount in investments.

I’m thinking fees will be about 10 per cent after tax We aren’t into cars (we’d be the ones in the beaten up 20 year old ones rather). So is this doable do you think? I think yes but I’m still worried. Husband less so - we are both in fairly resilient professions so could consult (with pain if needed).

I’m not interested in opinion on private educatoon - both DH and I were and is the best thing our parents invested in.

Oh, and I do think it's quite relevant that the school is aimed at working parents.

Private schools vary hugely. I visited some where the expectation was clearly that there was a SAH parent, even closing the school every Friday afternoon!!

DD's school assumes that both parents may work (about 1/3 have SAH parent, 1/3 have one parent working part-time, 1/3 either working single parent or both parents work full time). As a result, everything they do makes it easier for working parents.

• You can drop kids off any time from 7:45am
• free homework club until 4:30 then paid after-school club until 6pm. You can just phone up on the day to book it if something comes up suddenly, which is amazing
• most concerts/ sports days etc are afternoon/end of the school day rather than 10am
• loads of after school clubs either at the school, or else they walk them to the sports centre so you don't need to be there to take them

Obviously, this isn't the main criteria, but I would take it into account! Make sure you research lots of schools. If you're paying, you should be aiming for an amazing school (whatever that means to you) not just an OK one.

You need to find a school with good wrap around care. My dds school has breakfast club at 7.45am and ASC to 5.30. It used to be 6. Some schools finish at 1pm. My dds does and they have ASC til 3 on a Friday. I have to draft in fil to fill that.
There’s also childminders for mornings and after school.
I work in a Prep school and no, the sports are only on on certain days, it won’t be cross country every morning. You need to dig further as to how often these are on and a lot of sports are seasonal, so there’s that as well.

Beware - Mothers helps are very very hard to find. Even if you pay high hardly anyone wants to do the hrs ....

Unless you drop lucky. Everyone wants the same hrs and very very hard to find someone (well it is in Surrey)

I’ve had to pay people for a full time wage to get the part time hours...... (for three yrs) and potentially considering it again.....

If school fees are only 10 per cent of your net income it sounds like you have plenty of money. We have no mortgage and school fees are about 30 per cent of our net income for 2 children. Our children are picked up by bus 20m from our house at 7.15am and get off the bus at 6.30pm. it's a longer day than most people do at work but I gave to say they love it..

Oh and the children can stay at school doing activities til 6.15pm if you so wish...

We could just about scrape by with private education, but for two children, it'd need me working full time. We decided it'd be preferable me working 3 days a week, rather than full time, and to state educate. I'm glad, the children get so tired, they like being picked up at 3.15pm two days a week. Also I have the time to take them to extra curricular activities, and the money to pay for private tuition. It's just less stressful for us. Our DC are happy at their local village primary. I was privately educated, DH wasn't. My parents have said they couldn't afford private school today. 30 years ago it was apparently more doable. The fees have gone up much higher than inflation.

I would say if you could save up two years fees, then go for it. If you have the disposable income to save this money, you can afford private education. Don't do it if you are going to put your finances under pressure though.

So mortgage is around 15 percent take home
I’m thinking fees will be about 10 per cent after tax

I don't think that you will have a problem paying school fees.

We pay 2 x secondary day school fees which is approximately 30% of our net income. We have paid off our mortgage though - deliberately planned before we had to start paying 2 sets of fees.

We have 2 DC, 3 yrs apart and used state primary. We weren't in a position to pay for pre prep onwards for 2 DC so we planned for secondary school fees. When DC1 started secondary, the mortgage (we were overpaying) and one set of school fees represented close to 40% of our net household income.

6 yrs on, our household income has nearly doubled and DC1 is in sixth form. We only have one more academic year of double school fees left. We already have this in hand - minimal holiday expenses last year and this year in lockdown has helped somewhat! Future university living costs (which are less than school fees) have already been planned for (JISAs) so nothing will have to come out of parental income - which is just as well if the pandemic forces us into early semi retirement.

The 7am cross country and prep clubs till 6.30pm sound very familiar

OP, in our prep, cross country in the morning doesn't automatically mean that you can leave the kids there. Most parents tend to stay for the duration of the club, feed the kids and drop them back to school. Of course you don't have to do that, but do ensure the school will take them right after the clubs. Same with after-school and saturday sport - you do want to try and be there for the kids (and also because other parents will come!) so not so straight forward with wrap around care. If I were working a stressful job, I would go for a private independent than a prep - the prep does need a lot of involvement from you!