% of your salary on school fees

[Alwaystierd]

Struggling to pick schools post offer… the ones my daughter loves is the most expensive.

Am I crazy for using 7 months of my salary on private education. What do others do? Do most people find it easily affordable?

The answers you will get won’t help you. It depends on your joint income (assuming you have two people contributing) and your outgoings.

we spend just over £36k on school fees (before vat). Obviously out of net income. But it’s nowhere near 70% of our income

Very few people find it easily affordable

But is there another salary, are you also paying a mortgage etc etc?

Just my income. My husband earns about £30k more than me.

paying a small mortgage but only live in a flat, ideally would like to move to a house but have accepted we will have to compromise

If you are concerned now then I’d think hard about signing yourself up for 7 years of this, including 8% or more increases every year + the extra stuff on top unless you are confident you can increase your income during that time.

as pp said not sure anyone’s personal circs are going to able to guide you as people afford private schools by scrimping, by having loads of money and everything in between.

FWIW we were weighing up three schools in end, and there was £17k a year difference in fees between the most expensive vs cheapest. although we loved the most expensive one by a lot and could technically afford it we walked away as the value add just wasn’t there for us, and we didn’t want that pressure on our DD too (as we would be stretching ourselves).

I spend 25% of my take home salary on my half of school fees. Have a small mortgage and camping holidays so it's doable

What about savings, pensions, savings for your DC? Personally I wouldn’t spend 70% of my income on school fees but if you can cover everything I NC lauding proper savings for yourself and DC and still give your DC the standard of living and experiences you want in your remaining household income then go for it. I don’t think anyone here can answer that though as depends entirely on you situation.

Thanks for the responses, I just wanted some positive reinforcement but it’s obvious we need to decide as a family based on our circumstances.

The difference between the cheapest and the most expense is £6k - it’s just means all the luxuries like holidays with friends, designer handbags, expensive facial treatments will have to be given up. Just have to keep reminding myself it’s for my only child!

@Overthebow we have about £600k in equity in our house and another flat, £150k cash and my husband works for the NHS so has a good pension.

we just won’t be able to save again for the next 7 years and would ideally like to move into a house. Just trying to decide if I’m being really silly and not thinking about the future enough

Yes. You are. Sorry

I use around 70 per cent of my income and don't have savings. The fees are probably around 20 percent of our household income. We don't go on holiday and our car is 20 years old. Our house is in need of repair! But the kids do all the activities they want and we buy nice food. We've decided to prioritise education but it's definitely a strain.

Most around me spend zero on their children's private school fees.

The grandparents pay.

Decided against on basis that fees alone would have cost a third of (after tax) household income, not counting the hefty school extras.

On pp’s point, I wouldn’t have been able to save any money. It would have all been very tight, eg not being easily able to afford a new boiler when needed. Families that enjoy grandparents’ financial support towards fees are very fortunate.

You say 7 months of your salary. Is that with or without some of your DH’s salary being paid towards school fees?

Good luck whatever you decide. You’ll hopefully quickly get used to not having those luxuries. Seven years isn’t forever.

@Windowsillgarden 7 months is all
In cost - fees, lunch, travel, device rental. Just my salary, I pay for school fees, clothes, food etc, my husband pays all big bills (mortgage, car, council tax, life insurance etc) which all comes to about 40% of his salary. It would leave us with a disposable income of about £2.5k a month

Don’t stretch yourself financially to afford private school, it never works out as being worth it.

Thanks for the helpful clarification@Alwaystierd. FWIW I think I would definitely have gone for it had we had £2.5k disposable income left a month after fees, bills, mortgage, car etc. But your risk appetite might differ.
Curious to know your daughter’s reasoning for preferring the more expensive ones? Eg is it facilities or atmosphere or something else? Only asking as am curious about the PS sector and (maybe a pipe dream) hope one day it will be a more viable option for my family.

As a child that went to private school,I found it really difficult knowing that my parents had made so many sacrifices for me to go there!
Only do it if the alternative schools are rubbish and you don’t have enough money to have holidays etc !!

Goodness me, fancy having to give up the facials and designer handbags (plural!!)

£2.5K per month LEFTOVER? I don't even earn that...!!

@Windowsillgarden she just thought the girls all looked friendly and happy. Plus she loves Art and secured a scholarship (10% of fees). She’s a nice girl whose found it hard to make friends at her prep school so her being excited to go to school is important to us.

I would said skip prep school, we only went down the private route as we moved mid year and got a really bad prep instead of the one outside of our flat and it cost less than full time nursery. In hindsight, I would have 3.5 years saved up of secondary fees if we had stayed in the local primary

@tellmesomethingtrue I do understand how it sounds. That’s why I posted in a private school forum

@Alwaystierd it’s the way you said it. Starting with can I afford it at 7/12 of my salary vs can we afford it if we have £2.5k of disposable income left over each month even after fees, mortgage etc are two very different questions, and it’s rather astonishing if you don’t see that.

The percentage of your salary is less relevant than the percentage of household income, surely?

with £2.5k disposable income after everything paid I’d ditch the facials and designer handbags and prioritise holidays with friends that will be fun for all of you. I’m assuming you could cover most of the £6k if you currently have regular facials and buy multiple bags but these aren’t really things I buy so I have no clue!

45% well 4/9ths

I think whether it's crazy or not depends on if you think the remaining 5 months of your salary gives you a reasonable quality of life.
I wouldn't sacrifice my life and holidays as I see some do for private school, though maybe I would if the area or my child suggested a need to do so.

Pretty much 100% of my earnings after tax and pension contributions. We then live off of DHs salary.

We are a bit of an edge case though. We moved my DDs to private because the state school denied DD1 access to after school club/activities after she was diagnosed as Type 1 Diabetic. Private school have accommodated her incredibly and meant I can stay in work.

In my experience at least half of kids fees are paid by grandparents, who sent their own DD to the school 20-30 years ago.