family of 5 living in SE on £30K can we afford £6K per year for ds1's school or am I bonkers?

[thenewgirl]

I have done the sums and I think we could survive month to month.

but

we are currently on 51K per year.

for ds1 to go to this school we have to move house (and to another county) housing costs would be the same but we would have less money due to change in job and have the school fees to pay.

it would not be forever as I am currently a sahm and will have earning power one day. also dh's new job would earn him more in years to come.

does this sound do-able?

I'm well up for it!

please tell me if I'm looking through rose tinted specks?

Nope, you are nuts (unless there is a typo in one of those figures)

Is this a private school (cos 6k sounds cheap for the SE if so..)? Have you other children and will they start school before your income goes up?

TBH, if I had two children at private school here (also SE) I would reckon I would need to go back to work full time and earn at least 30k (before tax) just to pay the fees....

A school in the south east that only costs £6k a year? Yes you are bonkers.

god really?

any advances on nuts?

We live in the NW on about £45K a year, with a tiny mortgage, and there's no way we could pay £6K on school fees.

Can you show us your workings out so we can see if you have missed something vital (like paying the mortgage/feeding your kids )

didn't want to say...

but it is a steiner school, so the minimum contribution is £6000 per child (not classed as fees)

ds1 is 8 so is of school age, ds2 &ds3 won't be starting for 5 mre years so would have earning potential then, and discounts apply etc.

am presuming as there are 5 of you that yo have two other kids.... so what happens when they want to go to private school? are you just going to invest in one child?

Message withdrawn

I will put my workings out down but I'm a bit nervous as mn can be a bit ferocious at times !!!

shall I?

(Mind you we pay about £8K to run 2 cars...)

£30K net

ok I'm gonna quickly type out my workings out...

Message withdrawn

Ah I thought you meant before tax - might be more feasible then... though I would warn you that a friend sent her ds to a Steiner and the fees went up a LOT within the couple of years he was there. It was one of the factors in them changing to a different school...

bonkers

To pay the £6000 from net income you need to earn roughly £8000 gross. So what you need to ask is can you live on around £22k pa?

I think you are bonkers - you are basically proposing cutting you current income by about half. Do you have savings? Have you considered the costs involved in moving?

Ah okay 30k net - disregard all I have just said! Well actually don't because the general principles still apply. You will have 24K net, about half of your current 51K (presuming a net figure too). Can you cut back your current lifestyle that much?

I think - in the nicest possible way - bonkers. You won't have any spare money at all and where's the fun in that? You've got two more children - how do you know for sure you'll have more money by the time they need school fees paying? Send them to the local school and use the money for more books, holidays, clubs - maybe even extra coaching if you think its necessary - but don't commit yourselves to such a massive expenditure for so long - you really don;t know what's waiting for you round the corner.

We live on a lot more than that and I can confidently say...............

PROPER BONKERS

We could do it for one but is your DS the chosen one, what about the rest of the children ??

PROPER BONKERS

Well done Bree, dear

OUT

RENT 1000
BILLS all 150
COUNCIL TAX 120
POCKET MONEY dh and I 200
FUEL 100
KIDS EXTRA 100
CONTIGENCY 100
FOOD AND HOUSEHOLD 400
SCHOOL 420
----
2590

net income is £2600 currently.
I know there is room to cut down on this buget further.

My mum will pay £40 per month towards his fees (and the others when they end up going)

this budget is no different to our spending now other than we have £200 pocket money each now (DH and I)

we are currently throwing money at our mortgage for our house that we own and let out.
we are also able to sell this when the mortgage term is up (2 years time) and release equity. the house pays for itself otherwise.

there.