How do people afford private school?

[PopGoesTheWeaselYetAgain]

Following on from discussion House of Commons today, how do people afford private school fees? Is it by sacrificing holidays and other luxuries? That wouldn't by you a year, but did she perhaps mean a term? How do you pay for the other two terms?

I'd appreciate it if posters refrained from speculation. I'm interested in people's actual financial circumstances and decisions.

Grandparents pay ours.

@5thclassstamps " Can’t have grammar schools, they are unfair and divisive and little Jonny who could sit GCSE math in reception has to sit and learn math with Nigel, who will never progress past counting to 10 despite 1-2-1 support for the whole 14 years of his schooling….because that is fair."
Right. Grammar schools are unfair and divisive-and state schools set. Apart from that everything you say here is true.

How do people afford massive top of the range extensions, yearly expensive holidays, brand new clothes all the time, eating and drinking out regularly, more than one child, etc

Same question really? Either two relatively high paid earners, inheritance, help from grandparents etc...

How does anyone afford to have a stay at home parent? That basically costs the same (at least) as school fee's for one child in lost earnings.

The UK government puts a lot of money into learning English via the British Council.

@Pythag i wasn’t talking about people learning English as a second language, I was referring to the woeful GCSE results of English lit and English language by children born in the UK to English speaking parents……

No, you were talking about whether or not the UK funds the learning of English overseas. You claimed it doesn’t. I corrected this.

@Pythag . I didn’t know that. Thank you for the correction (although the British government isn’t a sponsor of the scheme in Ro).

All but two of the parents in our class of 15 have a SAHM. The other plus myself are single parents. The men work in finance, international government roles, media, MDs - all senior roles.

Sorry that's not what I meant. Totally understandable that a fair amount of private school children have a stay at home parent. Some people have well paid jobs that's not unsurprising.

What I was getting at is, when people say 'how on earth can people afford to pay private school fees', and then don't bat an eyelid when other people are stay at home parents (with a child in state), having a SAHP is basically the same cost as paying private school fee's!

No problem. The British council has three offices in Romania which facilitate English language. This is partly funded by the British government.

Ilikepinacoladass I agree. Friends of ours in London - the wife gave up her £150k per year job as a Finance Manager to 'do the school run'. That's alot more than our 2 sets of school fees..

Now being out of it and working part time (over 60 now) - of course if you are working in a minimum wage role and want to keep your hours down then you wont be able to afford PS.

As others say there is a great range of fees and we did indeed find at the beginning that our Pre Prep school fees were the same as childcare costs.

Sometimes (I am going to have my tin hat ready for this one!) people make very poor decisions and consequently find themselves in a mess. We had two senior roles - I didnt particularly enjoy my role but it was a means to an end.

We now have an inheirtance but private school is all done now.

I went to a state school and it was rubbish. Secondary modern and I went at the time that grammar schools were scrapped by Shirley Williams whilst sending her own kids to a direct grant. I didnt pass the 11+ and have done OK but I have a strong work ethic. I have always worked full time too. I would honestly never be comfortable relying on a man to provide for me.

Its a bit like the twits who state I am very lucky to have a private pension and am also eligble for the state pension. Its not really anything to do with being lucky...

I remember a friend of mine urging me to go for a drink at 1600 on a Friday 'everyone was there, dont be boring'. She now finds herself without either a private or state pension. She worked lots of cash in hand roles and the money just disappeared.

I wish schools would teach financial management too. I am staggered by the number of people who dont seem to be able to take their salary/benefits and work out what they have left over.

What I was getting at is, when people say 'how on earth can people afford to pay private school fees', and then don't bat an eyelid when other people are stay at home parents (with a child in state), having a SAHP is basically the same cost as paying private school fee's!
I've never thought of it like that.

Someone I know said they worked out that their local independent school fees were less than they were paying for nursery childcare. It surprised me, but definitely was the start of my changing perspective regarding the types of family who use private schools. It was the first time it crossed my mind that there'd be a 'normal' professional couples that aren't absolutely rolling in it.

The fees for my DS’ prep are £1245 per month. The monthly fees at his old day nursery are £1400. We have always paid our fees out of my salary and my DH pays for the mortgage and other household bills. It’s a very common situation at my DS’ prep.

Salary/earnings. Manage budgets tightly, both working full time, only have 1 in private (other in state at the moment) and fees lower than most at about £15k per annum. We may send our second private in a year or so but only if she's having issues in state (as eldest did)

Clearly, some people live very affluent lifestyles and pay for school fees, plus have a massive house in an expensive areas, lots of lovely holidays, second homes etc. Some of these manage to have all this via 2 well-paid jobs and possibly financial help from parents through gifts or inheritance.

Other people manage to afford fees without all this without 2 huge salaries often due to careful planning for a number of years. These kind of people didn’t just suddenly one day wonder about private secondary education when their kids were 9 or 10. They have been financially a stud since well before they had kids and made choices and managed their resources through their whole working lives. I’m not saying that everyone on all salaries can therefore afford private fees - they can’t, but more people with solid middle incomes could have the choice to send their kids to independent school, at least for one phase of education, if they made different choices early on.

The kind of things which could make it affordable for perhaps 2 teachers or people paid similar incomes might be;

• not having kids until in their mid 30s or later and then just 1 or 2
• sticking in a smaller house rather than moving to a bigger house or more affluent area - so remaining in a 3 bed semi, rather than moving to a 4 bed detached house which many people do in their 40s.
• Both working full time and keeping the career moving upwards. No time out for looking after kids or part-time, even when early childcare is crippling.
• Frugality - limiting spending on socialising through 20s and onwards - therefore bigger deposits for houses.
• Building some savings so no need to take on payment plans on cars, furniture, phones or other items. Sticking with older usable products bought outright rather than upgrading to newer ones bought on finance.
• Paying down mortgage quickly in early years - so getting rid of mortgage early or reducing it so monthly payments are less onerous.
• Being money savvy about bills (switching) and banking and saving.

These things don’t have to result in private education. They are simply things the financially savvy middle-earners do which put them in a stronger position and give more choices later in life. Those sacrifices and frugalities (possibly less travelling, less eating out, less expensive socialising) in early 20s have cumulative effects in later 20s, 30s and 40s and 50s. People sometimes look at middle earners in solid public sector jobs but who don’t earn big money and wonder how they are having the lifestyle they do in their 50s, or retiring early by late 50s or affording private secondary education for their kids, when they are earning more and feel they can’t afford those things. I think they often forget that choices they have made such as taking 5 years out of work, only ever working 3 days, having a bigger house, having more holidays, updating their cars regularly all cost money.

In the end, we all make choices. Lots of people could make all the careful choices in the world and never afford private education. Others could afford it if they made different choices. But perhaps they value the bigger house or working part time or having regular updated cars more. It’s all just different choices, but worth recognising that choices we make pretty early on can have longer term consequences.

WombatChocolate
Your post makes a lot of sense to me and embarrassingly I think I came to that realisation much later than i should have. When you're state educated, you and most of your friends are left wing, and you teach in the state sector it's very easy to have strong opinions on private education and a lot of ignorance on the topic.

Spending time talking to more people, actually working in the state sector and realising that most of the time it's actually normal families just doing what they can for their children was an eye opener to me. Like a PP said, plenty of families have a SAHP and middle of the road day schools cost less than a second income in some areas. I'd never considered it like that.

I agree with this. Also private schools do a lot to attract teachers both as employees and as parents. I know DS’ school has two 110% burseries available just for the kids of teachers don’t work at the school.

As for the other parents - while yes you will get some millionaires able to fund private school for 5 kids & take 4 luxury holidays per year — those families are few and far between. Most parents have planned for private school and earn between £90-250k joint.

Having a lazy husband who decides not to work / do minimal work costs more than private school fee's do, in lost earnings. Wish someone had explained that to me when younger! Lol.

We send our 3 children to private school - joint income is around 120k per year no help from family and normal jobs - currently we pay out of our earnings as we had kids fairly young (first at 18, second and third at 25) and did not have much savings.

We pay monthly - we were paying for nursery before they started school and the monthly price isn't massively different (actually having my younger 2 in reception currently is cheaper than full time nursery was when they were under 2). We pay the school fee instead of saving but we could re-mortgage our house or take a loan if we needed to.

Wrap around care ect is included we do not have a big house or most expensive car, our mortgage is cheaper than renting in our area and go on a holiday each year and a lot of days out and meals out / clubs ect.

For my eldest we initially went with state school but it didn't work well and the wrap around care available was poor quality and expensive.

Wow, you must have a super ability to manage money. I'm on slightly higher income and I find having one in private school challenging (but she also has an extremely expensive hobby)

This is us. DS starting private school this year (at age 10). It wasn't always on the cards but for various reasons it's the path we've now chosen. DD will follow age 12. We are solid middle income earners - maybe even poor by MN standards! But have made quite astute choices over the years. We're not wealthy but had kids later, both always worked full time, didn't over-stretch on family house and drive one normal car. Finding budget holidays has always been a hobby of mine!

This has put us in a position to do it. It'll be a stretch and we'll need to continue to make astute choices but that's our choice to prioritise it.

WombatChocolate 50% discount for teacher's kids...