Savings and School Fees

AlexSuffolk

I am expecting to inherit about £60K which I want to put aside to pay for private schooling for my son. What is the best place for this money given that I would obviously like it to attract interest but that I will also have to make regular (termly) payments out of it?

kidmugsy

If you are certain of which school(s) you want to use, find out whether they'll give you a discount for a lump sum payment, and a fee freeze.

AlexSuffolk

Do they do that? I hadn't thought to ask that.
I di know which school as my son has just started at pre-school there.

racing_blue

You could put the money in cash & share ISAs this year, next year, and the year after that (It would take 3 years to stach £60k)

It will earn tax free £, you can always withdraw it as planned, but you may find your income covers some or all of the fees in years to come leaving you with a tax free income stream going forward

You have probably thought of this!

opinions4u

How many years of schooling?

How much is the typical year's fees today.

When will you first pay?

AlexSuffolk

Racing Blue, no I hadn't thought of that! This is all very new (and sudden) in the planning.

opinions4u wrote: »

How many years of schooling?

Well, as much as we can afford. I'd like to be able to get him through until end of junior school at least, so 7 years.

opinions4u wrote: »

How much is the typical year's fees today.

Fees go up incrementally with age, currently starting at £6585 and rising to £9435 /year at the end of junior school.
There will be a lot of other expenses (uniform, extracurricular activitues, school trips etc etc), but we should be able to save and pay for those out of our salaries.
We don't have any other savings to put towards this.

opinions4u wrote: »

When will you first pay?

First payment will be due Sept 2012.

whitewing

If you pay in advance is that money protected somehow?

I'm wondering as I heard some gossip the other day that a private school local to us may have to close its junior side because so many children are leaving it.

atush

Well there is that, not sure if you could get any guarantees.

But they do offer discounts if you pay in advance. So you don't hve to worry about price escalation (as fees rise more than the rate of inflation).

HappyMJ

AlexSuffolk wrote: »

Racing Blue, no I hadn't thought of that! This is all very new (and sudden) in the planning.


Well, as much as we can afford. I'd like to be able to get him through until end of junior school at least, so 7 years.


Fees go up incrementally with age, currently starting at £6585 and rising to £9435 /year at the end of junior school.
There will be a lot of other expenses (uniform, extracurricular activitues, school trips etc etc), but we should be able to save and pay for those out of our salaries.
We don't have any other savings to put towards this.


First payment will be due Sept 2012.

If you don't have enough for all the way then I would suggest the later years after junior school that you would get the best value from such as from Year 7 on to A levels.

AlexSuffolk

HappyMJ wrote: »

If you don't have enough for all the way then I would suggest the later years after junior school that you would get the best value from such as from Year 7 on to A levels.

Yes, that's one view, but equally a lot of people believe giving a child the best possible start in the early years is the most important as it gives them a grounding in social skills, a thirst for learning and the skills to enable them to study and learn.

For a number of reasons, we believe that the formative years are where my son currently has needs which simply cannot be met by our local state schools. I'm hoping that he will be sufficiently grounded and capable by the time he starts senior school that a good state school will be fine.

It's been a tough decision to make.

rpc

whitewing wrote: »

If you pay in advance is that money protected somehow?

I'm wondering as I heard some gossip the other day that a private school local to us may have to close its junior side because so many children are leaving it.

AFAIK, no.

A private school local to me (my friend's sister went there) closed a couple of years ago. They were in financial difficulty, mostly due to parents being late paying fees. There was a huge uproar as those who paid up in advance lost their money (even just the rest of the current year if they paid the year in full). Those who had received education that they hadn't paid for were refusing to cough up anything.

I don't know how it ended - the 'paid up' parents jioned the list of creditors and the administrators were going after the debtor parents. If anything did get fixed, it took a long time.