Can we afford private school?
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Anonymous
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Nope no way.. you kid and your family may LOVE the private school and it will be difficult for you to pull the kid out later.
It's like trying a business class flight to Asia the first time, you will always be unhappy and feel lesser if you can't afford it anymore. So don't buy tickets for business class if you can't afford to buy them again. |
Anonymous
| We sent one to private school for $10K per year many years ago when our income was $250K and that was a struggle. I can't imagine how you can pull this off honestly OP. Granted, for us, DH is in consulting and income pretty much quadrupled since then. Now with our last one in high school at $45K per year, it is a drop in the bucket. Still, based on what I am reading, your income potential isn't such that you can pull this off. And I am a big proponent for private schools. Can you ask the grandparents if they can fully fund? Are they very wealthy? |
Anonymous
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Quick breakdown:
$185k -$40k taxes -$30k mortgage -$10k food -$5k gas -$20k other misc. expenses -$10k private school tuition =that leaves $70k left to save, invest, etc. What am I missing? |
Anonymous
10k food? For a family of 5? And it's $30k private school tuition, not 10. No travel, no insurance, not even retirement savings accounted for here. The level of fuzzy math you're resorting to should answer your question for you, but like I said: magical thinking. |
Anonymous
Where is this 2.5k/m mortgaged home for a family of 5? This is like 1-bedroom apartment in DC. |
Anonymous
Anyone who bought before 2020? |
Anonymous
We don't travel, food is under $200/wk currently (Costco) so that figure is accurate, although it will go up somewhat when the baby starts solids, and I explicitly wrote at the end the remainder includes savings, etc. Tuition is not $30k/yr until the other two kids are older enough for Kindergarten, and at that point the income figure should be higher as well. |
Anonymous
| OP, the entire thread is telling you this is a bad idea, but you clearly want to do it anyway. So just do it and deal with the consequences. |
Anonymous
| America really is full of temporarily embarrassed millionaires. |
Anonymous
This is the actual Steinbeck quote: “Except for the field organizers of strikes, who were pretty tough monkeys and devoted, most of the so-called Communists I met were middle-class, middle-aged people playing a game of dreams. I remember a woman in easy circumstances saying to another even more affluent: ‘After the revolution even we will have more, won’t we, dear?’ Then there was another lover of proletarians who used to raise hell with Sunday picknickers on her property. I guess the trouble was that we didn’t have any self-admitted proletarians. Everyone was a temporarily embarrassed capitalist. Maybe the Communists so closely questioned by the investigation committees were a danger to America, but the ones I knew—at least they claimed to be Communists—couldn’t have disrupted a Sunday-school picnic. Besides they were too busy fighting among themselves.” |
Anonymous
Even at 3% interest rates, a 600K mortgage (so 750K home with 20% down) alone is 2.5k/m. Once you count taxes, and home insurance, we're talking 3.5K/m. Most homes in the DC area cost more than 750K, especially if you consider homes big enough for a family of 5. I'm scratching my head on how the 2.5k/m number was calculated. |
Anonymous
+1. Private school for 3 kids on $185k! My grandmother would call this "putting on airs." |
Anonymous
How was that a struggle? We did it on half your income. |
Anonymous
| No |
Anonymous
| Don't do it, OP. Speaking as a parent who has had kids in public and private, private is only worthwhile if you can *comfortably* afford it. That's not you. Get to know your neighborhood school, you might be surprised how much you like it. And if you decide to switch later, if your finances improve a lot...you can do that. There is more than one private school out there. And if you are worried that you're shutting door...maybe just write a note and say you are sorry to turn down their offer but your family decided you couldn't afford it. They will respect that and will have no trouble filling the spot. Private school can have advantages over public school especially in middle school, but it can also have disadvantages. Read more. Your are still at the beginning of your parenting journey with 1 kid entering school. It feels momentous, like something you really have to get right, just like buying an infant stroller, but it doesn't matter as much as you think. Your child's academic success is much more about your household than it is about their school. |