Private education for lower/middle income families.

Lunar_Eclipse

LEJC wrote: »

People earn a living and its then their choice how they spend their money...[/QUOTE

^^^ this.

We're in a similar boat. Less income than OP's friend and school fees of £15k/year (senior school.)

Financially, it was probably a foolish decision, but not one I regret so far. It was always in 'the plan' so we've saved 'little and often' for years.

I firmly believe in intentional living and making important things happen. Anything is possible. We'll make it happen because we've prioritised it. Some people aren't interested or willing to live by this philosophy and many genuinely have no choice due to financial circumstance. We are all different.

Anyway, class sizes generally tend to rise in senior schools and are on par with the state sector in the more academic environments we looked at. Our class sizes are 26, the same as our local comprehensive. However, since it's a highly selective school, the pace of teaching is FAST. The behaviour in the classroom is also conducive to learning.

In terms of wealth, it's obvious. Most families at our private school live in 4/5 bed detached houses in very nice neighbourhoods. A handful in every class live on country estates worth several million. I honestly don't know of a single child that lives in a semi detached house, let alone a flat or terraced home. Yet this isn't the flash school (that's down the road!): this is supposedly where hard working parents send their bright kids and make sacrifices to do so.

Most children go on overseas holidays several times a year. Some also have holiday homes in the UK. They typically drive 2/3 expensive cars. We aren't like that ... and actually have no desire to be either.

Despite living on the doorstep of this school for years, it's been a bit of an eye opener. It's the only thing that might make me think twice about choosing differently if I did it all over again, although my daughter LOVES it, is in her element there and thanks us for allowing her to go there.:)

To put it in perspective financially, most parents with six figure incomes in our area say they can't afford private school. (I wish they'd just say that they're choosing not to afford it because at that income level, most could afford it but just have other priorities.) They make up a significant portion of families at our local state school.

Lunar_Eclipse

Should have said that I think there's a difference to be made in terms of fitting in financially and fitting in socially. So whilst we're on the edge of fitting financially, we do fit socially, so my daughter feels fine about going there, which might make all the difference.

LEJC

Spendless wrote: »

We still couldn't manage £900 a month school fees. around £1k goes on mortgage, CT, gas, water, tv, phone, internet. Leaving just over another £1k for other bills including grocery shopping. Someone going through our bills with a fine toothcomb would certainly find areas where we could cut down probably to the tune of £100 a month. I doubt they could make £200 a month savings though, so a £900+monthly school bills fee would just not be sustainable- not without a 2nd source of income into the house, which we don't currently have as I lost my job a few months ago and haven't managed to find anything else.

it really is a case of what you get used to....and its probably not the place here to go into detail,but as I mentioned in an earlier post our mortgage is small and in turn our house and associated bills are on a par with that...we still live in our first home that we purchased 20 years ago and as such because we have not moved up the ladder and missed out on some climbing house moves that has helped enormously now paying school fees...

In real terms its fair to say that our mortgage payment is probably less per month than most would spend on a takeaway pizza meal deal for 4 ...so trying to compare like for like on household expenditure could prove difficult.

I agree with you that probably someone looking at your household budgets wouldnt be able to shave much off of them...taking your example of 1k for your bills our "like for like"work out at no more than £350 in comparison to your 1k...showing that everyones budgets and priorities are different, of course its difficult to find £900 straight off but over the years we have adjusted the figure into our monthly expenditure...