Private school on a £85k

[Rebmolellmar]

Hi I am looking at sending my daughter to a private secondary school as I feel this would best suit her needs etc to her to blossom and hopefully enjoy her time at school,
We don’t earn massive amounts the school we are looking at is £8000 a term,we rent and it’s £1750,I am looking at any ways to reduce our other bills,
hopefully I can do a business in the evenings to get extra money.

8K a term is £24k a year which works out to £2k out of your net salary a month which is basically the entirety of your salary + £100. Work out the cost of uniforms, extracurriculars, lunch, trips — if your husband can afford that from his salary great. If not one of you will need to try and get a better paying job.

My daughter got offered 60% bursary so she is now starting in September

Have you tried putting the amount you would spend in fees aside for a couple of months to see how you manage on what’s left?

Bargain OP! Good luck to your daughter! More fool us paying full whack for our kids

Well done to your daughter. That is an excellent result!

I just wanted to add our experience for anyone else coming across this thread with the same question.

I would be very reticent to send my child to an independent school if I were only just able to afford it.

A few days after we accepted my daughter’s school place (and released her state school place), my husband was made redundant. He is struggling to find work again.

Our household income has halved. We are lucky that I can cover the fees and additional costs and the mortgage is paid off, and I am hopeful that this will not cause a significant change in lifestyle.

We had discussed this possibility of us both losing significant earning potential before we applied to the school, and had worked out that we could cover the fees from savings, but at the cost of a later retirement.

However, if we could have only just afforded it based on the income coming into the household when we were both earning, then we would have been sunk now.

To include trips is very good... have you double checked this? I have spent around £3,000 on school trips this year alone. Plus the other mandatory extras and uniform additions as required.

If she has sen and really needs this school you could try and get the ehcp to fund it

I now have supporting evidence to help with a ehcp application

That’s great news