Any tips on funding private school education?

[FuntoLearn]

We can afford three years. Argh!!!
How did you do it?

I'll get on with the advice before the inevitable political discussion takes over ....we did it with credit cards, remortgaging and working our socks off inbetween to pay for these! DD then passed 11 plus and went to grammar school (free!) so we've just got to do it again for DS now!

Mrs Muppethead. That sounds just like us .... exactly in fact!
:)

Well...it won't be forever, and you can't take it with you...lots of other cliches...etc etc.!!!!..have a cup of tea and take a deep breath..it's all for a really good cause and in our case was worth every hard earned penny!

Thank you - I like your style :)
Now, what can I sell on ebay........

I'd recommend a serious think before you go down that road.

I started it 14 years ago for DC1 and struggled and sacrificed so much to keep DC1 and then DC2 at private schools. Luckily DC1 finished his A levels last year and DC2 is just finishing GCSEs and then going to a non fee paying college for A levels and DC3 and 4 are so much longer so I can get away with not going down that route with them.

Seriously, give it a lot of thought before you commit.

Good luck

We are looking to start from age 8 to age 11 and then switch to Grammar (if DC passes that is).

Can grandparents make a donation? You can give money away with no inheritence tax issues, as long as it comes from income and not capital. My mum gives me £500 a month which helps a lot.

If it had to one or the other I would go for private primary. If a child rocks up in year 7 without a firm grounding in literacy and numeracy they are pretty much screwed. Obviously that doesn't happen to all state school children, or even the majority but the stats suggest it happens to a good proportion.

Yes they are going to help.
Think primary is good idea too as it gives a good grounding.

DH's salary pays for mortgage and outgoings and my salary pays for fees. We also have savings equivalent of a couple of years of school fees in case of a crisis. We bought a smaller property then we could have and it needs work done on it but thats on hold until we have more money.

I sleep easy at night as I realise if the worst happened we could sell this house and still buy a decent 4 bed house with no mortgage and release the capital to pay for all the school fees needed. We had children late in life so built up alot of equity in property.

Worth it for the right private school for your child IMO.
Have only one child, or at most 2 anymore you need to be a surgeon/investment bank/inherited wealth...

IMO opinion primary is so important but I went to an outstanding state primary and have appalling writing and wasn't taught the basics property.

My salary, pays the fees, or at least most of them!!! Our dd started last September and we would normally have gone skiing in Feb/March - not this year, we just thought it would be a bit of a stretch until we get used to writing those cheques out each term!!!

Our dd started in Year 2, even that was a too late and she has spent a lot of this year catching up. I wish in some ways that we had gone there from Reception, it would make a big difference, Our state school was 'Outstanding', with good results!

Live in a smaller house perhaps?

Seriously, private schooling is by far our biggest outgoing, much bigger than the mortgage. It does sometimes bother me that whilst we will pay off the mortgage in the next few years, the school fees will be there for a long time yet, then uni etc. However, you have to cut your cloth accordingly and we have to accept that we will live in a smaller house and not have fancy cars. But we think that education will make the biggest difference to our son, not the house he lives in or the cars we drive. It's worth it for the right school.

Bursary or scholarship? Ds has been awarded 50% scholarship starting the next academic year which will make a big difference. I pay remainder out of income which is manageable but then I've only got one child.

I did a spreadsheet that set out all the costs, including holiday cover and annual fee increases. Seeing it in black and white spread out over all the years made me understand whether I could truly afford it. I hadn't factored in any scholarship potential though!

We drive a 10 year old car and only take a foreign holiday every 2 year's. Luckily our income level is such that this is this is the only 'hardship' we are suffering.

I certainly wouldn't remortgage or max out credit cards to put my kids through private education.

I would choose primary too, if there's a good grammar near you. It means they are more likely to arive at secondary in a position for teachers to have high expectations of them, which is great.

We are in a grammar school area and that is what a lot of people do. However once they start in private education they tend to continue. Only about 5-10% of ds's school leavers go on to state school. I reckon at the start of school the intention is more likely 50-60%.

You can also look at some of the payment schemes where you pay x amount in each month rather than having to find a bulk each quarter it can make it easier to manage your finances.

You can just save up monthly. Ds's current school does a scheme where you pay school fees over 9 months - eg pay 1st July, 1st August, 1st Sept to cover Michaelmas term - and they offered a small discount for signing up to this scheme. Ds's new school has a similar payment system but administered by an independent school fees company and charges a premium for doing so. I will carry on paying monthly for his new school but instead of paying it to the school each month I will save it in my account.

Yes our ds's school offers a scheme through a separate company, basically it is a credit agreement , they pay the fees each term and you pay back over 12 months. I don't know how much the interest is but it isn't significant - adds about a hundred a term to the cost.

If you can get the money together, it's worth asking what discount they will give for paying fees upfront.

Chub that's £300 a year extra though isn't it? That pays for music lessons for us. I can't see the point in paying extra for something I can do myself.

Oh I agree, we don't do it. But I suppose you've got to have the slack in your budget a year before hand to save a years fees before they are due and then after the first year save each month. Some people can't. A lot of patents sail quite close to the wind financially at day's school.

We pay monthly and or adds about 70 pounds to the bill for the academic year in admin charge. I could think of what to spend that money on () but we have no choice at the moment. Still, don't regret a penny so far.