What a Right Pickle!

rob404uk

Hi,
I know having 8 to a class is great. As a teacher myself I would like to just add a few things.
- staff, the staff in private school will be no better on average as they come from the same pool as those from the state. To my knowledge they do not pay any more so it is not like they hand pick them. They also employ newly qualified teachers so you could find yourself paying massive fees for a teacher with extremely limited experience.
Good luck with your mission, although it is painful to see you spend what for most people is a salary on school.

hattiefats

Hello! This may be a bit naive but have you thought about explaining your current circumstances to the school. They may be able to give you some grace on fees while you pay down some of your debt. That might at least allow you to tackle the high interest on debts.. I appreciate they are a business but if by being reasonable for a short period they will have your money for next ?? Years they may do it. I have heard of schools doing this for other circumstances such as divorce/bereavement/redundancies. It's worth a chat with the bursar.

I do think though as your twins are so little they wouldn't miss out if they went to state school for a bit. Good luck whatever you decide.

Time_to_face_the_music

nomoredebtplease wrote: »

I've completed a SOA (see below) and have also been in touch with Step Change who have recommended a DMP. We are both at the stage where we are willing to go along with anything and make whatever changes we need to make to our spending habits to get out of this mess - APART from ONE thing. We want to continue to send our children to a private school. It would kill us to have to withdraw them from there.

It's pretty clear to me from looking at the SOA where the savings need to be made. But what I'm most interested in knowing is if anyone has any advice or experience of starting up a DMP when there is so clearly an item (such as private school fees) which is such a large 'optional' spend per month. What are our creditors likely to think?

Thank you to anyone who can help us get out of this mess

Hi and welcome :hello:

Have you actually spoken to StepChange (ex CCCS) or completed their Debt Remedy online? You really need to discuss the school fee situation with them but to be totally honest, I really can't see how it would be acceptable to your creditors.

It's been pointed out to you that a lot of your other outgoings can be reduced but with a joint income like yours, you really need to be looking for a substantial amount to throw at your debts each month. We started a DMP 11 months ago with very similar debt to yours and a much lower joint income. In 11 months, we have paid off 23.1% of our debt and expect to reach 25% by the one year anniversary, giving us a projected 4 year DMP. Your creditors will expect to see debt being paid off at a similar or higher rate and with your current SOA, you have a massive deficit and nothing to pay off against your debts.

Don't just look at StepChange, also explore Payplan or self managed DMPs such as My Money Steps:

https://www.mymoneysteps.org/

and North East Derbyshire CAB:

http://mymoney.nedcab.org.uk/moneyadvice/debtremedy.asp

A self managed DMP can give you a lot more flexibility but I am still concerned that you will not manage to get the school fees included. In your current SOA, even taking off the fees would only leave £500 for the creditors which would give you a 13.5 year DFD even if all creditors stopped interest, and from our experience, they don't.

You need to look at your overall spending and the figures which are allowable in the various categories. All sites mentioned above give a guide to these when completing online assessments so you can check where you can move spending around to free up money in other areas.

StepChange's allowances are not the most generous and they do not make a massive amount of effort at getting interest stopped on your debts, it's really a method of distributing your payments to your creditors so if you feel confident at doing this yourselves and want to retain control over your payments, I would look in other directions.

You will get plenty of help and support here and if you feel like a little more, please come and join us on the DMP & Mutual Support Thread

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/3723081

Good luck and please keep us updated
TTFTM

FinKite

Sell your car. If it's worth £10K, sell it, put £9K to debts (on the repayments listed that's about £200 a month less to pay) and spend £1K on a 2004 Ford Focus like mine! Your insurance may come down, and I expect your tax / maintenance too.
That's more than 10% of your debt paid off instantly!

What is the £325 child care - breakfast / after school club? Can you reduce that - maybe its provided by school and a child minder would be cheaper? Can you change working hours to cover it yourself?
I presume you're both using CCV towards it?

I'm going to be a bit harsh now about IVF babies - and I have one myself... IVF does not make our children any more precious or special. They're ALL special. So you know, we don't have to give them private schools just because of that. It doesn't matter how they were conceived, YOU CANNOT AFFORD PRIVATE SCHOOL.

You CAN afford it, once you clear your debts. So my advice is to move school, get the debts paid off then put them back in private school again.

Now I know you've said no to that, so IMO your other option is to downsize your house. There is lots to be saved in your SOA as others have pointed out. But not enough to cover that debt shortfall. Why not just downsize?

redpete

nomoredebtplease wrote: »

Our mortgage is a repayment, 2 year base rate tracker that we took out in September 2011. As such it's due for renewal in Sept 2013. This is one of the things that worries me most about a DMP - getting a competitive deal at approx. 80+% LTV in less than a years time. What are our current lender (Santander) likely to offer us if we take out a DMP? If we weren't able to secure a new deal, moving to Santander's SVR (which I think is 4.74%?) would cost us even more money each month!

This is what would worry me as well. This is a high LTV in the current climate and I suspect that you would struggle to get new deals with the amount of debt you have. (although I've not kept up with details in the mortgage market recently)

Any savings that I and others have pointed out could easily be swallowed up by increased mortgage payments. Again for me it comes back to the school fees - these are not affordable. It will probably be difficult at first for the twins if you do move them to a state school but kids are remarkably resilient and often the real struggle is for the parents rather than the children. Releasing the money to pay off large chunks of the debt will mean that you can reconsider the situation in a few years time, when I suspect the advantages of private education are more evident at the age the twins will be then.

gardenlady_2

redpete wrote: »

This is what would worry me as well. This is a high LTV in the current climate and I suspect that you would struggle to get new deals with the amount of debt you have. (although I've not kept up with details in the mortgage market recently)

Any savings that I and others have pointed out could easily be swallowed up by increased mortgage payments. Again for me it comes back to the school fees - these are not affordable. It will probably be difficult at first for the twins if you do move them to a state school but kids are remarkably resilient and often the real struggle is for the parents rather than the children. Releasing the money to pay off large chunks of the debt will mean that you can reconsider the situation in a few years time, when I suspect the advantages of private education are more evident at the age the twins will be then.

This is exactly the situation we are in with Santander. They will put up our rate to the SVR in March. They will not offer us anything else. A broker told us that they do this on purpose- people who can remortgage do so, those who can't are then forced to stay on the SVR. Our motgage will go up by £200, and it is a lot less than yours!
The problem will then be remortgaging with another provider. Noone will touch you as your credit rating will be appalling- even if you don't go on a formal DMP with Payplan or whoever the arrangements to pay less than the agreed amounts will show up on you credit file. We are trying to remortgage in my name only as the debts are my partners- we don't know if this will work, but really hope so.
I have to agree with others about private education for your twins. At their age the benefits of private school wont be having an impact. Think about it the other way round- in a larger class size they meet more people and make more friends, become more rounded people. I have been a supply teacher and so have been inside hundreds of infant schools and most state ones are great, even in really deprived areas. At secondary level I can understand sending them to a private school if you live in a difficult area. But again, a good state secondary anywhere will give a good education. The nicest children I know have very wealthy parents, but were always sent to local state schools.
You must remember that a DMP is for debt crisis. When we went to Payplan they questioned my gym membership!!! The DMP was not even anything to do with me, it is my partners debts so I can imagine that they would not be too happy about school fees!
It is horrible being in debt, no matter what you earn. You are not alone- I know 5 people who are in huge debt after IVF treatment. You obviously love your children very much, but having stressed out parents deep in debt wont help them! Please just look in to other schools- go and sit in for a few hours and see what the state sector is like.
Good luck with it all. We are self managing the DMP, and it makes no difference to the creditors whether it is self managed or managed by Payplan etc- one of the credit card companies told us that.

vasseur

I think what you aren't seeing here is that you actually have options. A lot of people don't have that luxury. Yes you have substantial debts but you also have a large income, areas where you can cutback massively and equity in your house.

I really would consider sending the children to state school. They are wonderfully resilient at that age and will make new friends very easily. Reception year is a lovely year. Within a few months you'll wonder why you didn't do it sooner.

Best of luck and keep posting - these boards are great

dorisday

My grandson has always gone to state schools and is now at uni taking a degree in physics and works part time for DWP his friend who attended a private school is working at mcDonalds at the age of 23 with 2 sisters also privately educated who both work in offices as clerks.

Occasionally just before exams times I would hire a private tutor for my grandson in the subjects he needed extra help - did the trick and it didnt cost me thousands in fees for schools;)

craftingmad

Hi, I just wanted to say hello and let you know that I moved my little girl from a small village school which had 12 children a class (this was not a private school) to a larger primary school with 30 in a class when she was 7 (again not a private school).

I was really worried about how she would settle in but I need not have worried at all. If anything she is now even happier with more children to socialise and mix with and she loves it. She had friends on her very first day.

Both of my two children (who are the most precious things in my life) have always attendeed "normal" local schools and both of them are excelling in all subjects. They are both doing work well above what is expected of their age and I am so proud of them. I honestly believe that even if I were paying for schooling they would not be any happier or more intelligent as they are now. I also beleive that social skills are also really important so its great that my little ones now have a larger social circle.

I also think that whatever school children go too the one thing that makes a difference is support from their parents. I have always read to my children, listened to them read and shown an interest in everything they do and I think this has helped them to take an interest in school and achieve great things.

Hope this helps for you to make a decision. I know it's hard but kids are amazing and at only 5 I think they will love all the new classmates they will gain by going to a larger class.

Keep posting on here - everyone will give you loads of support and advice xx

sillysid

I understand your dilemma - and why should your kids education suffer because of bad financial mismanagement, etc. However I have/am sent 3 kids to private school from the beginning and believe me if I had to do it again, now, with the benefit of hindsight, I would never sent them. certainly not for primary school. You currently owe 4 years school fees (after tax)

When my eldest went to private school the fees were £500 a month, (like paying up a really expensive car) the fees are now £1000 x 3, plus travelling costs, etc... 3300, after tax, before a coin is spent on anything else. It has been a massive sacrifice, admittedly our choice, but the older they are the less likely you will want to uproot them.

The stress of having to earn that amount of money, year in, year out, outweighs any perceived advantage to sending them in the first place, as you are too busy working to spend time with your kids.

I am near the end, one has finished school now, the other two nearly...

Sorry to be a doom fairy, just another view. All the cost cutting in the land ain't going to cut it, you are going to that anyway, just giving you a longer term view...

good luck