What's the best way to save for private secondary education

[nuttyone]

DD1 is 17-months and No2 is on the way. My partner was educated privately as his parents were in the military.

What is the best way to save up so that the children can have the opportunity if they want to go for secondary school as day pupils.

One of us pays tax at 40%, there is no inheritance due to come our way so i figured i needed to start now?
Any tips??

buy lottery tickets? Only joking. There is no easy way, I funded DC1 and 2 through private school and it was not easy. I was lucky in that DC 1 obtained a few scholarships and managed to get a bursary at one point. The most important piece of advice I can give you is to make sure that you can follow it through. If you are doing it for one you have to do it for both and you have to make sure you can afford to keep them at private schools and not pull them out half-way through. I have seen this happen to several of DC's friends and it was very upsetting.

There are quite a few companies around that offer school fees savings plans, Holmesdale (or similar) rings a bell.

DC1 has just finished his A levels and DC2 is mid-way through GCSEs and then may go to a state 6th form for A levels. DC3 and 4 are 4 and 2 and will be going to state schools, DC3 starts in reception in a few weeks. Although ideally they would have had the same opportunities as DC1 and 2, it is simply not affordable/justifiable. Due to the huge age gap, I don't feel too bad about them not going private and will see how they get on at the local state schools. I will however save as much as I can so that perhaps when the time comes they can go to a private secondary school or I will have the money to fund them through college uni.

It is a very big decision to please give it a lot of thought.

You will need 150,000 for one child at today's prices - approx - through to GCSE. You need 300,000.

You can lock your money up for at least ten years at higher interest rates and if I were you (and it's possible to do this) I would put all of one salary towards it every month.

You should have his or her entire education saved for and be making a dent in the second one by then.

I think I would be investing in stocks as well - they can only go up. I'd be getting into one of those school savings unit trusts or funds or whatever they are because if you don't need the liquidity you're more likely to see a good return.

The only thing I would say is, don't count on the interest to add to the terms' fee sums. Once at private school it costs a fckg fortune and any extra you earn will go on uniforms, trips, lunches, buses, extras, the whole lot.

Good luck, we think it's worth it.

Jeez talk about getting my sums wrong. You need 15000 for both children through to GCSE plus another sixty for two to A Level. So around 200000 not 300000.

Thanks all.

You need to start saving now, and you need to start saving a lot - like around 25% (minimum) of your joint income. Get a financial adviser (an independent one) to advise you. Or if you want to enjoy life a bit more, you could just move near a good state secondary.

This was initially my thinking MrsSchade -- 200,000 plus over the next fifteen years, it might be better off invested in a property.

However there's still that chance element of not getting into a grammar, or just missing the catchment, or the school going off or something.

Presumably some of the fees will be paid out of income at the time, so ideally you would want to save so that you are paying the fees over 16 years or so rather than 7. Two children at an independent day senior school would cost between £2,000 and £2,750 a month currently by the time you include the various "extras" (though there will always be the odd school at either end of the spectrum). The actual mechanics of how you save is best left to a financial adviser, though there aren't any specific tax-efficient savings plans for school fees as such - it would be little different to saving for any future cashflow. Assuming that you are both salaried with a regular monthly wage, then regular monthly saving would be the best way. I suspect that if you saved £1,250 a month, then that could cover you through both children for schooling from 11-18 at an independent day school. At least that would be the sort of ballpark figure that you should be looking at in terms of spreading the cost.