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?

Pretty big assumptions there. You’re wrong.

Agree with PP about value of time spent in state education for your child and you- even if you can affford private all through. You’ll all be living in too much of a bubble otherwise.

There are really lovely and excellent London primaries and some great secondaries too. I would buy a house in great catchment area instead personally.

It's extremely common for grandparents or inheritance to be used to pay private school fees, OP. (Or to to be used to buy a house, thereby freeing up money for private school). If you're wondering how colleagues on a similar income to you can afford it, it's probably this.
Prep school starts at 7. I'd send them to state for at least infants, start saving a year's school fees for both from now and then reassess once you actually have experience of your local primary school. If your children are happy and thriving you can wait until secondary, if you're not happy with your local state school, you can look at prep.

We have a very good joint income so there was never really a question of whether we could, more whether we should.

But one of the things that made us seriously consider it was that two sets of nursery fees, without any funding, weren’t causing any difficulties for us. Prep school cost the same per year. So we knew we could manage the fees without having to tighten our belt in other places.

So how are you coping with nursery fees?