Income needed for 2 sets of private school fees in London?

[Londonhither44]

I know these topics are always inflammatory (hence username change!) but am really curious, if you’re sending 2 kids to private school in London (in particular starting from a young age) and not relying on family help or inheritance but paying out of income, about how much do you make?

DH and I combined have what would be deemed a very comfortable salary, and pre kids I’d always assumed private school would be an option. We have 2 toddlers so now considering options more seriously. Looking at the fees now for the junior privates near us, if I add the fees for 2, plus wrap around care (which would be an absolute necessity to keep our jobs/incomes), plus our mortgage (a small London house, we aren’t overextending ourselves but any mortgage is pricey now..) and bills- we can do it, but not if one of us were made redundant or had to take a material pay cut. We work in finance so those are not totally remote risks.

Colleagues at our jobs with similar household incomes seem to have wildly different approaches which I suspect boils down to a combo of priorities, risk tolerance and the unspoken parental help.

Im not interested in turning this into a state vs private debate (please!) but rather seeking honest opinions on what income you felt was comfortable to take the risk with two London school fees? And if you felt you needed some kind of buffer in terms of savings / mortgage being paid off / parental help etc?

@Londonhither44 Hi - we have 3 kids and were considering sending all our kids to private school (the one we were applying and got in was 30k per child. We had a combined income of just under 350k. And then the VAT would have come into effect the term after my eldest would start secondary. One of the reasons we made the decision to move.

@MrPickles73 depends where you live in zone 1, some areas of (lambeth for example) are very deprived and despite ofsted not healthy environments.

I like @turquoiselizard 's breakdown so for us.. 2 kids outside London..£200k joint income gross

£0k mortgage
£3k bills, food and family costs - we live rurally so fuel and cars is a major expense
£3k school fees (2 kids)
£2.5k hobbies / holidays
£0k savings for DC
£1k salary sacrifice pension contributions
£0.3k commuting costs - mostly work from home

With 300k net you can do it and have a comfortable (but not luxurious) lifestyle. Roughly what we do:
60k school fees + 10k extras
20k holidays
40k mortgage
50k living expenses
100k savings (for retirement mostly)
20k unexpected things (health, house repairs, etc)

We are on the edge of London with only one child, now in senior school. Our combined income is around 300-400k (it is highly variable due to self-employment). In the 300kish years, it feel tight.

mortgage 2.5k
school fees 2.5k
wrap around/holiday care 1.5k
Plus other bills and food

Without listing everything out here, our annual bills (not including savings, holiday, entertainment or general spending on lunches, clothes, etc) are about £110k. So that is about £200k gross just to keep the household going with one in private. You’d need another 60k gross for a second child.

You need a spreadsheet!

It isn't the cost of the fees today, it is what they become in 13yrs time that is the problem...

I have 2DC in middle of the road day schools in London. Both have scholarships. Fees are £4k per month.

We still have 8 years to go - however when we set out on this "journey" we worked out what the fees would cost in total and then worked out how much per month that would be so we always paid the same per month. This built a buffer - it's really important to have that safety net as you do not want to have to remove your child in exam years.
One year we are projected to have £80k outlay for school fees.

I laugh at that original spreadsheet - it was wildly wrong and we have had to increase our monthly "payment" by 40%.

I bank on 8% fee increase per year. My pay has not kept pace.

People will always mention the extras but tbh I have found that not all parents do all the trips.

Income really depends- I have friends on half our HHI and spend the same on fees but they have family wealth - grandparents that pay for holidays, contribute to fees and the knowledge that you will have a decent inheritance/ a back up plan makes a huge difference.

We just have ourselves and as well as fees we need a retirement plan. Our jobs are stressful and as we near our 50's if we are made redundant it will be very hard to get an equivalent role.

We had our kids in our late 30's, we have a relatively small mortgage left, I don't think we would do the same again if we were starting now. It is very hard to get off the private school treadmill once you are on it - our prep did not prepare the kids for grammar exams for example, the expectation was to go to a private senior school.

I should also add that we downsized our house to be able to afford private school and maintain a comfortable life (not scrimp on holidays and days out, eating out etc, even on a £250k salary)

@schoolfeeslavemakes a very good point. We expect fees to rise about 6% per year with a big jump when DC reaches the senior school. Not to mention all the trips and extras. Not trying to put you off - we are very happy with our decision - but it is a commitment

My eldest has just finished a levels and apart from the last year or 2 we managed very easily with 2 in on a sub £150k household income (split between us both evenly) with a constant £2k mortgage. People that historically sent their kids are not your reference point you need people in currently as it is a different ball game now.

Our household income is now substantially higher (over £250k) but the fee rises plus general cost of living rises plus VAT and failure of tax personal allowances to keep pace with inflation plus general uncertainty in the job market means that we are going state in September for year 7 for my youngest. I do think parental choice has been removed and despite being a high earner and having received significant promotions I can no longer afford what used to be affordable.

I would think very carefully before committing yourself to the fees given the current economic environment. You either need grandparents / someone making a significant and regular contribution or you need £400k a year if you also have a mortgage and want to be able to holiday occasionally / run a decent car. We are going to tutor my youngest instead but I would have preferred him to have had the same experience as his siblings in a school that would have suited his needs better. He feels very hard done by but the reality is that it would put us in a negative figure month on month now.

Mainly I think it’s my husbands fault for not earning more (I out earn him) so that is the sort of stress you will put your marriage under if the fees are not just very manageable to you - blaming each other for not being able to afford it anymore.

We are weighing up the exact same decision at the moment and this is absolutely how I feel as well (also not British and working in finance with two toddlers, one starting school next year). It feels like we should be able to easily afford this on paper but we have a huge mortgage given London house prices, and no family help or significant savings if things go wrong so I’m just not sure I want to take the risk.

Yes we have a mortgage. Key for us has been saving for this and living like they’re in prep from the year before they started like another poster mentioned.

We have a joint income of £400k and have 2 dcs at a London prep. Mortgage is £5k a month. We have substantial money in stocks which we could liquidate if needed, though we see it as long term savings (for retirement/dcs uni/house deposit etc). No family money or inheritance, all savings accumulated from earnings. But they have grown to the level of assets that other families would have got from an inheritance due to investing strategy.

It's comfortable, we don't scrimp, though we spend sensibly eg uniform is secondhand, we don't bother with a car (in zone 2) or cleaner. We take several holidays every year, not luxury options but not budget either. No commuting costs as we walk/cycle to work and school. Fees are £24k a year per child, includes lunch and day trips. We don't pay wraparound care but dcs do an extracurricular every day, and activity camps through the holidays (these can be expensive and you'll need lots of them to cover the long school holidays, and often not even provide a full day of childcare, and your dcs will want to go to the ones their friends are at).

If your dcs are toddlers now I'd be registering with preps to keep your options open, and check if your target schools do 4+ assessments. If you want to keep state options open then visit the local schools and consider moving closer to any one worth targeting. The birth rates might be dropping but it's still very competitive for the most sought-after schools.

Our combined income is around £250k and we didn't do it, even if I went full-time I wouldn't have been comfortable with it. It's the secondary school fees that are the killer - our nearest would be £75k for 2 kids, and that's just the fees. And we didn't see the point in doing private primary and not secondary.
But we have grammar schools in our area, which we're very happy with. Our eldest starts grammar in September.

Also name changed..
Household income ( before tax) between around 400-500k. No mortgage.
Live in London. 2 kids- both went to State Primary and then Private Secondary. One still there and the other is now at Uni.
It wasn’t a stretch for us as such but is a huge amount of money and we did weigh it up as they both got places at good state secondaries.
There is a wide range of parental incomes/ lifestyles at the Secondary schools they went to but noone particularly cares about it.
Just had the fee invoice for next year- with various extras etc it’s well over £10,000 a term for a Centralish London school. We’ve only had 2 years or so of VAT. Don’t regret the fees at all but if we were starting now with the massive hike in fees we would definitely think twice about it. 100% would not pay for Private Primary but never considered that anyway.

We went state school till Y5 then transitioned to private. This hybrid approach was our way of making it work financially.

250 minimum. It might be wise to put them in a state primary till 8 so you can build up a couple of years fees in case of any financial hiccups.

At least £250k, and I’d say that’s with a low or no mortgage. We earn £200k combined and the breakdown of our £10k net pay is:

£2900 mortgage
£1000 bills (inc. cleaner)
£240 kids clubs and tutor
£650 food
£530 commuting
£550 nanny
£1500 savings
£500 holidays
£300 salary sacrifice for car
£300 house maintenance - sometimes much more
The extra £1300 goes on days out, birthdays, clothes, haircuts, date nights, unexpected bills.

We could have scraped it by not saving, no holidays and no extras a months, but that’s a miserable existence.

Also name changing.

Annual gross income is about £300-£350k.

We have one in private senior and another just about to start year 7. Both went to state for primary.

School fees are just over £60k a year plus buses, trips etc.
We save £5k a month for school fees and have about £50k saved up in the ‘fees’ account.

Mortgage and bills and disposable income spends come to £8k a month.

It’s doable but it feels a bit tight some months particularly as our other savings are dropping due to house updates etc.

I would very seriously consider whether prep is really worth it.

And agree with previous poster. You definitely need a spreadsheet!

Our combined income is over £300k and I don’t feel comfortable enough to send 2 to private school. The mortgage is big (£4k) and fees will increase year on year, income skewed towards one of us - it’s too risky.

Worst scenario that's £14k per month, less £4k mortgage, fees £5k per month, you have £5k per month minimum remaining. As the fees increase your mortgage should decrease and your pay increases. You have enough salary to pay for school if you wanted to.

DH - £220k gross - me varies cos self employment but c. £40k net.

seriously challenging sending two we are Midlands and fees are £19500 prep and £23000 senior - we have a 1.5 years of fees in advance for one set of fees. It’s hard going for us! I mean fees were £12k when we started 4 years ago!!!

200k but I wouldn’t entertain private school for the primary years.

This advice is not nuanced - it depends on the borough. Our two local state primaries are faith schools (need to attend church) and totally over subscribed. This’d never have worked for us. And our son has SEN so the support of the SENCO in the small independent he attends is crucial for him to reach his full potential. He’d had floundered in state, even had he managed to get a place. Prep has been worth every penny for us (not to mention the clearly superior admin and availability of all staff members).

We couldn't afford to put one in and our income is around 170k combined. We do have a hefty mortgage though. It's very dependent on outgoings as most of this stuff is.

We have a v low mortgage …