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What constitutes enough money for private school
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Anonymous
| Actually, there are lots of openings in 3rd and 4th: NCS, Holton-Arms, St Alban's, Landon... |
Anonymous
|
If you are earning $500k, you have the money - easily.
What you are discovering is that $500k is not infinity. You are discovering that life is trade-offs. If you "can't afford private school because of mortgage," you are also saying "big house is more important than a private education for my child" It is fine if you want to invest in material goods instead of human capital for your child. Just know that this is what you are doing. |
Anonymous
| I've learned long ago that everyone has a different priority for their money so I am not going to flame you. I would just toss out there that there are some areas in Bethesda less than $800-$900K. I am not sure if you are looking at more room needed to have an au pair or live-in nanny or needing to be close to a metro or only looking at the Whitman cluster etc. but West Bethesda (Wyngate and Ashburton elementary both have good reps) or the "North Bethesda"/Rockville of Tilden Woods, Luxmanor etc. also have well regarded elementary schools and those areas feed into Walter Johnson. You should be able to find something that cost below your target range in those areas. As someone else pointed out - lots of people in Mont Co send their kids to private school so maybe going a little less on the house may (assuming your critical items are in that lower price range) free up extra money for retirement or give you options for private school if for some reason you feel private school is a better option for your children. |
Anonymous
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If you're planning on buying a house anyways, spend the tuition money on buying in a neighborhood with good public schools. It may cost you $200K more than in the city, but two kids in private school for 13 years will cost you a lot more than that!
You'll have a house that will (presumably) appreciate, and you can save education money for the college years. |
Anonymous
You're house poor. There is no way you can't afford private school for 2 kids. That's about 50k/year for TWO kids. I can't even imagine having that much money - we send 1 to private school on 125k/year. And we save quite a bit. How do you dress? What cars are you driving? You really need to think about what's more important in your life. I can't imagine blowing 500k per year and not even getting private school out of it. i'm not flaming at all - but I do think you need a little bit of a reality check. |
Anonymous
| I agree with the previous poster. Our HHI is less than half of the afore mentioned $500k and we have two at private school. Good god, what I wouldn't give for that kind of HHI. |
Anonymous
| My husband and I will be making gross 450K but after taxes it will be much less. looking at all private schools for my son the tution fee will be atleast 25k a year. I have twins now so add another 50k just in tution. he's in a private school here in LA so I know that by the end of it all it will be close to 100k for schools for all three of them. the kind of house we're looking for will cost us b/w 1 to 1.5m, we don't have much debt but we have saved nothing for college yet, and have not maximized are retirement fund either. After a lot of thinking we decided that we're going to buy in chevy chase/bethesda area, try public school for him (which from the forum sound excellent) and take it from there. If we are not satisfied (he'll be eligible for Kindergarten next year) we'll put him in a private school, and basically have minimal savings. It's all about the savings in the end. Ofcourse we can afford to send all three to private schools from the begining but with hardly any savings for ourselves and for them. I am interested to see how this will work out for us! |
Anonymous
That was a wee bit unfair. The thing is that no one knows that private school is better. (Note recent articles) |
Anonymous
So the above poster is implying that if you spend more on the house you are not investing in your child? What if you spend more on a house and the reason it costs more is because it is in a good school district? It seems to be that most homes in more expensive areas have better schools......... |
Anonymous
I'll stand up for the first poster here. Actually, next year it will be at least $60k for two children. If they're in the 40 percent tax bracket and live in DC with our nearly 10 percent extra tax, that's roughly $120k of salary to send both kids. It's a lot, no matter how you look at it. If you put that money into a higher mortgage in the suburbs, at least the interest is tax deductible. |
Anonymous
| I don't think that the tuition is going to continue to rise at the same clip in the future. With this economic outlook, and the rapid increases in the last couple of years, they would see fewer applications. |
Anonymous
| I know for my child's school the increase has been almost 8% over the last two years (rather, EACH of the last two years). It is insane. |
Anonymous
I think you have some outdated tax info. The top marginal rate for federal income tax is 35% for income beyond $357K for joint filers. The top marginal rate for DC income tax is 8.5% for income beyond $40K. Medicare is 1.45% of the total gross income and social security 6.2% of $102,000. With graduated tax rates and assuming a healty amount of deductions (at least $100K just for DC taxes, mortgage interest, real estate taxes, and charitable contributions) and some credits, I would assume that their effective tax rate for fed and DC income and payroll taxes on $500K of gross income is more likely in the low 30% range. So instead of $250,000 in taxes, it will be around $165,000. In ten minutes, I just saved them $85K in taxes. That should be enough for tuition for two children. Of course I'm just kidding. Once that second child comes, that's when the burbs sound more appealing. |
Anonymous
| Hey PP- with 2 kids and all those deductions, I'm sure they'd be paying the AMT! That's 28% federal, no deductions, plus max out fica on 2 incomes (6.2% on $204,000), medicare, DC or state taxes (not deductible under AMT), that's low to mid 40s% in taxes. Sorry, OP! |
Anonymous
No flame from me. I think that you should take a look at your numbers and see if there is any room for you to cut your expenses. My husband and I are in that income range and we current do a lot of discretionary spending. We have already noted where we will need to adjust to find the extra $15K a year (netting for current daycare cost) if we go the private school route without impact our current investment and savings rate. |