Budgeting for Private School -- Convince my spouse
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Anonymous
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So we have a disagreement on whether we should continue private school, coming down to how to afford it and not have to sacrifice travel (which is very important to my spouse for both visiting family as well as exposing our kids to the world)
So the biggest concern is that we will have to reduce vacation travel and not be saving enough for college. Here's our budget, and I'm posting it here because I want the Independent school perspective; money forum will surely tear this stuff apart. We have 3 kids, though they will only be in private school 2 at time because of the age difference; we will have college costs along with private school, but at that point loans would be an option. House is an old crummy house with an addition, which is nice enough but expensive because it is close in with "good" schools which we now realize are circling the drain. We have considered moving, but house prices have gone up so much in places that we think would be better options and it just seems insurrmountable and we aren't even sure public schools are actually better there (we hear a lot of bad news about FCPS, MCPS, APS on this forum, so hard to tell what is truth) Kids are thriving at private, so we are reluctant to rock the boat. Take home Income $20,040 House -$5,100 Extended Day -$300 Life Insurance -$200 Music Lessons -$456 Internet -$50 Mobile -$300 Private School -$5,667 ---------------------------- Fixed Total -$12,139 ---------------------------- Home Repair -$1,167 Streaming -$40 Groceries -$1,500 Camps -$500 Kids Activities -$167 Cleaner -$300 Cars -$200 Utils -$375 Med -$133 Shop Misc -$625 ---------------------------- Discretionary Total -$5,007 ---------------------------- Holidays -$250 Vacation -$667 Beach Week -$417 ---------------------------- Travel Total -$1,333 ---------------------------- ---------------------------- Net Savings $1,561 ---------------------------- |
Anonymous
You're going to pay far more in tuition payments than you would be in extra mortgage payments |
Anonymous
| Are you saving for college? |
Anonymous
| What grades are your kids in? I don’t think you need Private for elementary school because it is so easy to supplement. High school has AP classes. Our income is similar and we only paid for private school for 5th-8th for our kids. |
Anonymous
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This is the number 1 cause of divorce in the USA
along with infidelity and/or workaholic man / SAHM feeling ignored. |
Anonymous
That would be coming out of the net savings, hence the concern. |
Anonymous
| I would wait until grade 7 to do private. |
Anonymous
Do you plan to retire someday? Contribute anything to your kids' college tuitions? Other? Your budget seems unrealistic to me... costs for everything you have here will continue to go up, and there's truly no wiggle room in your budget as you have it laid out. It's not your husband that needs convincing. I'm afraid it's you who needs the reality check that you can't do this. |
Anonymous
| Are you budgeting for 3-6% tuition increase every year and other school asks (Annual Fund)? |
Anonymous
We are paying for 6-12. One kid is 6th, the other is 9th. High school is necessary where we live because of some very bad decisions made by our local school district. There are only AP courses for 11-12, so the foundations laid in 9-10 will likely be of poor quality. Almost all of the cohort of our children's friends from gifted are now going private, its unnerving. But that means we can't ask any of them how it is, we don't know anyone going to high school we only read the news and see the distressing numbers reported on their stats page. |
Anonymous
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If you can't move, can you or your husband consider potentially higher paying jobs?
Is the $1500 inclusive of ALL of your savings contributions? |
Anonymous
Oh please don't do this. |
Anonymous
Obviously not. This is a snapshot for next year. Our salaries are topped out for our role, so unless I can snag a promotion at another org, that will likely only go up 3% as well. |
Anonymous
+1 Theoretically, based on this budget, OP could spend up to 10.6k on mortgage payments (disclaimer: I am not advising this course of action). Bet you could get good public schools with that budget! And the mortgage won't increase 3-5%/year. |
Anonymous
| The big question is whether your net is after you've saved for retirement. And how much are you saving for retirement. I can't believe a few years of subpar education in middle and high school is really worth not being able to retire or not having enough money in retirement. |