Funding private fees - how do you do it?

[Account18]

Interested to hear -

did you have a starting fund earmarked for fees?
or are you reliant on annual income only?
or do you have a commitment from e.g grandparents

or a mix of two/three/anything else?

Yikes, I’ve just read some of her previous threads. Best to ignore.

Savings
income (no mortgage)
help from a relative

Yeah, saved enough pre-children to cover 3 years, but currently covering out of income.

We also paid off the mortgage, so have that option open to us if we need it.

Income. Causes no end of stress.

Used to be in a position of about 1.5 years buffer in the school savings account but VAT completely wiped that out.

I'd make different choices now but unravelling a relocation and elderly parent support is not an easy change mid school life. Nor does the need for SEN support go away. So we're stuck if we can still scrape by and keep our jobs.

1/3 paid by FIL, 2/3 paid by DH’s income (what was previously a dividend from the family company and is now a quarterly payment from invested money)

We saved but ended up funding it out of income as the fees weren’t too bad — works out to £4300 a month for three (but only 2 are in private school at the moment) which is doable as our mortgage isn’t too high.

Took financial advice from a specialist just before DC started prep. We'd paid off the mortgage, so we were advised and helped to remortgage, invest the proceeds and pay off the new mortgage gradually whilst drawing down the fees from the investment. They also set us up with an offset mortgage with lifetime tracker, which for the past few years has had enough in the offset to mean our mortgage is interest-free, whilst the stock market's still doing very well. I'll still be relieved in a month when our very last fees are paid!

Inheritance.

Split costs with exH. I saved for a few years beforehand to build up a buffer which would cover 2 years of fees. Originally the plan was to use this to contribute to monthly fees but a combination of academic scholarships (20-40%) and salary increases mean that I can pay for my share out of income (with income protection in place, just in case).

Income with 1y buffer in savings

We were older parents. Paid out of income. Two average jobs but a 'cheap' school and mortgage cleared by about yr10. No new cars but could also afford modest holidays.

well, if this is true (unlikely) - more fool the school if they don't use independent bursary assessors that scrutinise income more thoroughly!

I call bullshit.

My DH was a very high earner. When he passed away when both were in primary, I ringfenced money from the sale of our family home, then moved to a cheaper area to release more funds and so on. The area we moved to state education was poor so I did what I could to keep them in a private school.
I know two families who had help from grandparents, the rest funded it themselves, some by only having one child, some by making a lot of sacrifices, some earned enough it wasn’t an issue.

That is disgraceful. It looks like you’re not ashamed?

I mean the person committing the fraud!

Both work full time. Out of income.

Paying out of income. No help from anyone and the idea of having savings is only a plan for when school fees end.

Actually, I have pushed my planned retirement date out by six years to give us a good savings pot if I divert what would have been school fees into savings once our youngest leaves school. Bit annoying, but you do for family........

Ha, I’m glad we’re not the only ones re savings! One day…

The person likes to make up stuff to get reactions out of people. Look them up and you will see. They are talking nonsense half the time.

We paid for 10 years out of income - we have 3 years left for one and 5 left for the other. My parents have just gifted us a lump sum to pay for the rest of the fees to minimise their IHT which is a huge bonus for us and completely unexpected.

Initially from income and then when DC were in y10 and y7 we paid the remaining fees in advance from dividends. When my DC started prep fees were approx £2k per term, now in U6, if we were paying termly in excess of £10k, it's quite unbelievable how much it is.