How much should you be on to afford private education for two children?

[gemloving]

How much money do you earn to put two children through private education?

We're on 150k combined and I know it's quite low to put 2 children through private education but has anyone made it work? Would my children be the "poor" kids at the school? We need to apply for schools for my eldest this year as he will start in September 2023.
My youngest is only 8 months. I don't want to rely on it but am quite sure I'll get promoted in 2023/2024 which would add around 20k (pre tax).

We only have our mortgage and no other debts.

It might be nicer for the kids to go to a state school but then we can afford nice holidays etc. One of my friends suggested a church school but I don't like the idea of going to church for the sole purpose of getting my child into a certain school. It doesn't seem right.

Save up for secondary school. Local primaries cement you in the community and give the kids local friends which is just lovely.
Do as much enrichment as you can. See what they're into. Your input is the most important thing at this age

Sorry I thought it was clear that our mortgage is £18k - as in we have £18k left to pay. It's interest only too so costs us about £35p/m.

We are in our early 50's and got on the property ladder when prices were low. House is worth about £800k so we could remortgage to release equity if necessary to maintain two lots of school fees and keep our lifestyle but that's not where we want to be financially at our age.

So we are glad we only have one set to pay for out of income of £150k

@AngelsWithSilverWings I am in my 20s and cannot imagine £18k mortgage balance lol! Hopefully I will get there when I am your age...

I hope you are too. It was so much easier when we were young. I do feel for anyone starting out now and I really worry for my kids when it's their time to set up homes.

Our first home , a three bed semi cost £59k and was easily affordable to a couple of low ranking bank staff. It's awful how bad tings have got.

@AngelsWithSilverWings bought a 2 bed flat 2 years ago and it was 400k. A 3 bed semi in our area would be £1.2 million. we have a friend who grew up in this area and his father was a builder who could barely speak English (at that time) but they managed to buy a house on the same road as that £1.2 million semi detached. Its why we would never own a house unless we moved further out (and the house we would get in a desirable commuter town with good grammars would be tiny), so we are planning to just get a bigger flat in the area and hopefully if we increase earnings significantly, we could also consider private for our future child.

But yes this is why people should think about private school very carefully these days. Would the money be better used for a house deposit for DC? Of course if you live in London and have space, maybe thats not so important,;DH and I were willing to live with my MIL until we saved enough and we could do so cos her house was in London which is the main jobs centre. For older posters who live in the countryside/nowhere near major jobs centre, my personal opinion is that a better investment than private school (unless you get into a very prestigious one which would be a gateway to oxbridge/you think your DC is magic circle law firm/investment banker/barrister material) would be a small flat in a city that you can rent out until your DC reach adulthood. Then you can maybe rent it to your DC for cheap rent so that they can save up while working in their chosen field.... my DH overheard some young interns stressing out a lot about the cost of room rentals; apparently a room is renting for £1000 these days in clapham...

We're putting one through on under 40k...

This is a very temporary thing, I should add...we are moving to another country soon.

Are you always going to have to pay fees out of your annual income? Do you have investments you can use to pay the fees instead or start building up an investment portfolio so you can pay senior school fees through compound interest?

Thanks everyone. No private for the babes it seems and husband (accountant) thinks it's mad I'm considering it. He believes that a good state school, then grammar or secondary is just fine & he's probably right.

Circumstances might have changed by the time they are in secondary anyway.

For those who wanted to know:

We are in London, zone 4. Mortgage is £1300 now but will be £2000 soon because we're moving. We bought in 2017 but actually making quite a bit on the house. New house is a project and £100k ish will go on renovations. We have no debts, are invested in crypto, large firms, EFTs.

Don’t feel you’ve made the wrong career choice at all. Hopefully you’re doing what you love as am I and my wife. We earn combined around 270k and still have reservations about private schools for our boys. Both my wife and I weren’t privately educated and came from very poor backgrounds and yet made hugely successful careers. This leads us to question wether it’s worth sending our children to private even though we can comfortably afford it. The debate goes on…

Yes but why even consider this option? You make it sound as if private is the best way to go and that you should stretch yourself to get the children into private. I’ve personally done very well through state education as has my wife. We had vocational courses at uni. On average I think most university graduates come out with huge debts and lag behind their peers who may have left education after high school/college. I personally have friends from high school who dropped out with terrible grades and have a higher salary than me! Explain that and argue why the investment is worth it…

Going against the grain about private primary. Mine have been in private since age 3. Don’t regret it at all.
Wrap around care was very good, plus free or low cost after school activities every day if you wanted them.
Tons of music groups and excellent music teaching.
specialist language teachers
local schools that we could walk to so definitely part of the community and we’ve made so many friends and a great network amongst the other school parents. That’s just our experience.
We are in London. High salaries and high mortgage. We could not have afforded to put another child through on salary alone but as a PP mentioned - we also have several investments which provide income that we don’t use yet but could do if we lost our jobs or couldn’t work.

DH and I live in the north east (so cheap housing) and when I looked into it I decided the hit on our ability to save for retirement/live in a big house/go on holidays was far too great on our very comfortable income of £120K. But we have three bright motivated kids and good local schools that do lots of extracurricular activities so I'm not convinced of the value for money of private for us.

I'm GenX, our grandparents had no choice but to put our parents to private school if they wanted good post 14 education (of DH and my parents, 2 went to private boarding school, one went to a private day school and one went to grammar school). Private school was still affordable when we were children (PILs sent DH and both his siblings to a private secondary on a single lecturer's salary, now that same school would cost the entire salary of a lecturer of the same grade). But the price has increased so much since then that it's become more about being part of an exclusive club rather than about providing good quality education.

Is it a priority for you? You definitely could if you chose to.

I teach at an independent school (day only, outer London). Many of our parents don't earn as much as you, although a few do earn astronomically more. There's a broader demographic than you might imagine. At my previous school (more central in london) the income range was much larger.

My youngest is at an independent primary (not London, semi-rural). Our twins will start there next academic year. We have a combined pre-tax income of about £85K. It's tight, but doable because a have worked hard to reduce out mortgage in anticipation of these costs. We have not holidayed abroad in some time, but weprioritised small class sizes for DD - she's very bright, but has mild ASD and ADHD. She's flourishing in a class of 15, whereas I think she'd never cope in our local state primary (nice, but 32 in a class).

If you want to do it, you'd certainly be capable and not the poorest by miles! We are probably amongst the poorest parents at my DDs school, but so what? DD has had no shortage of friends/playdates.

Zero mortgage here on house in Surrey (husband and I, purely by chance, lucked out on the property upswing in SE London - bought a 5 bed house the old Kent road end of Peckham in 2007 because it was the same price as a 2 bed flat in Parsons Green (about 200k) and sold it for 1.1m… still mind blown.

we earn 120k between us him 75 and me the rest. Have two boys in private school at 30k total.

We run a pretty efficient ship (house has solar panels which trickle charge our paid off electric cars / bulk shop in Costco monthly and just get fresh fruit, veg + dairy at weekly shop. Spend a lot of time at the library / places that are free with NT membership etc) but I don’t feel like we penny pinch particularly.

we have been, and are very fortunate - for sure we’re unlikely to be buying a private yet in the near future. But we’re very comfortable with + confident / happy about what we have.

If you are earning 150k think a lot of it is mindset. It’s definitely very do-able unless your mortgage is gigantic - i t doesn’t have to bite too hard…

Wow - 3 kids in private school on £85k - how is that possible with living costs as they are? Do you have bursaries as well?

We're on £160k combined and have one dc at private. It's tight and our mortgage is small. It's also the long term commitment that's hard. Once you're in private education it's hard to come out unless you are in a grammar area and you have dc who get into grammar which isn't a given.

No way could we afford 2. Also you need to factor in a potential inflation increase every year.

Wow, surprised that people think 150k is tight- it's doable but it's a large chunk. But I would do it.

@Snoopsnoggysnog , no bursaries at primary. When they move to secondary there will be a discount if they come to where I teach.

We have reduced our mortgage as much as possible to keep costs low, we don't holiday abroad. Basically we don't see the need to spend much! Approx £45K for 3 in primary (slight discount for 3rd child), but that maximum is only for 1 year as eldest will be joining my school next year.

Our income will also be rising, hopefully as much as school fees! I'm looking into promotions and so is DH. We really want to pay off our mortgage before younger ones get to secondary age as that is when clubs/trips start to become a significant extra cost.

It's a matter of what you choose to spend your money on. For us, it was important for eldest, and seemed unfair/impractical to put younger ones in a different school with different term dates.

But for those on £150K.... definitely possible! Just depends what you prioritise.