HHI to send 2 kids to private w/o FA?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP didn't ask if it could be done for less. She asked where it would be comfortable. I think below $500K you have to cut costs significantly somewhere, although if you don't both work that changes the calculus considerably because you need less outside help and have time to shop for better and cheaper alternatives to what is quickest to buy/order. It depends on the particular circumstances of the family in question.

What costs would you have to cut if you only had $300,000? Yes, you might have to sell the beach house, but not if you never bought one to start with.

We have a HHI of $300,000, and I don't see how we could possibly send two kids to private school comfortably. Our mortgage is $4500 (which affords us a nice, but not extravagent, house), we have no car payments, no school debt and NO BEACH HOUSE (I wish!). After taxes, health insurance, bills, approx. $1800/month for our pt nanny (so I can work), savings for college and retirement, and a comfortable- think no fancy trips, but we don't watch our pennies on things like food- living, there's not much (if any) left over at the end of the month. Once we no longer had the nanny, we could probably manage to send one child to private school without having to make too many sacrifices. But to come come with an extra $30,000/year after taxes to send the second one would require a major lifestyle adjustment like moving to a smaller house and/or not saving a penny for college and retirement. I wouldn't consider this "comfortable."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Comfortable? Not penny pinching? $500K. At this level you can still save some, carry a decent sized mortgage, buy the kids whatever clothes you deem reasonable, comfortably pay for any and all extracurriculars they want, keep an appropriate level of "outsourcing" if you both work, and buy yourselves decent clothes and decent cars (and take decent vacations). That's not to say you won't notice the missing $60K a year that goes for tuition. You will.

It completely depends on the family and circumstances, of course.

I agree. 500K sounds about right. We make a bit more than half of that amount and it was really, really hard to do. We ended up pulling our children out of private school this year. It was a hard decision and there were even some tears, but on the end I think we did the right thing.

I was the biggest private school advocate and thought that our children would go through private school from PK-12th grade, no question about it. I was willing to sacrifice, eat mac and cheese everyday, and wear the same clothes for 10 years. When I first went to visit the public school our children attend now, I tried to find EVERY excuse in the book as to why it wasn't good enough for us. There wasn't enough recess (40 minutes as opposed to 1.5 hours), the classrooms were smaller, the testing, etc., etc. etc. My husband loved the school and wanted our children to go there starting in K, but he gave in to me and we stuck with private. When we visited private schools everything was hunky dory in my book and I found no faults because I didn't want to see any faults. Now that I am a bit older and a bit wiser, I realize the truth is that no school is perfect.

My children still have art twice a week, PE twice a week, music twice a week, and library once a week in their public school. They have 20 children and two teachers in their classrooms. We have the time to play more with children in our neighborhood.

The best part is that I am able to stay home (I was working in a low paying, yet fulfilling field before) and I feel like I know much more about what is going on in my children's lives. I take them to school every morning, greet them at the bus at the end of the day, we can do after school activities, and we are eating much healthier because I actually have time to cook. In addition, we are so much less stressed financially. We are saving more, donating more, and are simply in a much better state of financial "health."

In closing, there are some wonderful private schools out there. We loved our old school and our children grew so much while they were there. However, there are really, really great public school options, as well. In the end you need to make the best decision for your family.

[Anonymous]

Are we talking gross HHI or net? We have about 400K gross and 2 kids in private (about 53k combined). Not stressful, but not luxurious either. Another 100k gross and I would feel better, but this is fine.

That said, I realize COMPLETELY how lucky we are to have this much and to be able to do this for our kids. Especially in this economy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Comfortable? Not penny pinching? $500K. At this level you can still save some, carry a decent sized mortgage, buy the kids whatever clothes you deem reasonable, comfortably pay for any and all extracurriculars they want, keep an appropriate level of "outsourcing" if you both work, and buy yourselves decent clothes and decent cars (and take decent vacations). That's not to say you won't notice the missing $60K a year that goes for tuition. You will.

It completely depends on the family and circumstances, of course.

I agree. 500K sounds about right. We make a bit more than half of that amount and it was really, really hard to do. We ended up pulling our children out of private school this year. It was a hard decision and there were even some tears, but on the end I think we did the right thing.

I was the biggest private school advocate and thought that our children would go through private school from PK-12th grade, no question about it. I was willing to sacrifice, eat mac and cheese everyday, and wear the same clothes for 10 years. When I first went to visit the public school our children attend now, I tried to find EVERY excuse in the book as to why it wasn't good enough for us. There wasn't enough recess (40 minutes as opposed to 1.5 hours), the classrooms were smaller, the testing, etc., etc. etc. My husband loved the school and wanted our children to go there starting in K, but he gave in to me and we stuck with private. When we visited private schools everything was hunky dory in my book and I found no faults because I didn't want to see any faults. Now that I am a bit older and a bit wiser, I realize the truth is that no school is perfect.

My children still have art twice a week, PE twice a week, music twice a week, and library once a week in their public school. They have 20 children and two teachers in their classrooms. We have the time to play more with children in our neighborhood.

The best part is that I am able to stay home (I was working in a low paying, yet fulfilling field before) and I feel like I know much more about what is going on in my children's lives. I take them to school every morning, greet them at the bus at the end of the day, we can do after school activities, and we are eating much healthier because I actually have time to cook. In addition, we are so much less stressed financially. We are saving more, donating more, and are simply in a much better state of financial "health."

In closing, there are some wonderful private schools out there. We loved our old school and our children grew so much while they were there. However, there are really, really great public school options, as well. In the end you need to make the best decision for your family.

20 kids with two teachers? Which public school is this?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP didn't ask if it could be done for less. She asked where it would be comfortable. I think below $500K you have to cut costs significantly somewhere, although if you don't both work that changes the calculus considerably because you need less outside help and have time to shop for better and cheaper alternatives to what is quickest to buy/order. It depends on the particular circumstances of the family in question.

What costs would you have to cut if you only had $300,000? Yes, you might have to sell the beach house, but not if you never bought one to start with.

We have a HHI of $300,000, and I don't see how we could possibly send two kids to private school comfortably. Our mortgage is $4500 (which affords us a nice, but not extravagent, house), we have no car payments, no school debt and NO BEACH HOUSE (I wish!). After taxes, health insurance, bills, approx. $1800/month for our pt nanny (so I can work), savings for college and retirement, and a comfortable- think no fancy trips, but we don't watch our pennies on things like food- living, there's not much (if any) left over at the end of the month. Once we no longer had the nanny, we could probably manage to send one child to private school without having to make too many sacrifices. But to come come with an extra $30,000/year after taxes to send the second one would require a major lifestyle adjustment like moving to a smaller house and/or not saving a penny for college and retirement. I wouldn't consider this "comfortable."

It is kind of ridiculous to think that with a HHI of $300K, you can't find $30K to send your child to private school (if you wanted). You are over-spending somewhere. We earn $230K and send one to private ($30K) and live comfortably. I'm guessing that the difference is in housing. We bought small, but close in, so our mortgage is under $3500, and we don't have a nanny. We use after-care, which is much cheaper. I think that with two children, I would want to add an additional $75K (private school, college savings, etc.) to our HHI.

[Anonymous]

Using aftercare only works if you have the kind of job that lets you pick up reliably. Sort of like why people use a nanny instead of daycare in the early years. If neither parent can be at the school by 5 or 5:30, you're looking at a nanny or something similar. Some people really do have more money than time, and what little time they have they want to spend with their kids and working with them on homework and doing fun stuff on weekends, not doing a bunch of household chores which would leave zero fun time with the kids. It really is a family by family thing, so one family's numbers may be completely unworkable for another family. If we still worked the hours we do and made a lot less money, there would be no way we would have two kids in private.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Comfortable? Not penny pinching? $500K. At this level you can still save some, carry a decent sized mortgage, buy the kids whatever clothes you deem reasonable, comfortably pay for any and all extracurriculars they want, keep an appropriate level of "outsourcing" if you both work, and buy yourselves decent clothes and decent cars (and take decent vacations). That's not to say you won't notice the missing $60K a year that goes for tuition. You will.

It completely depends on the family and circumstances, of course.

I agree. 500K sounds about right. We make a bit more than half of that amount and it was really, really hard to do. We ended up pulling our children out of private school this year. It was a hard decision and there were even some tears, but on the end I think we did the right thing.

I was the biggest private school advocate and thought that our children would go through private school from PK-12th grade, no question about it. I was willing to sacrifice, eat mac and cheese everyday, and wear the same clothes for 10 years. When I first went to visit the public school our children attend now, I tried to find EVERY excuse in the book as to why it wasn't good enough for us. There wasn't enough recess (40 minutes as opposed to 1.5 hours), the classrooms were smaller, the testing, etc., etc. etc. My husband loved the school and wanted our children to go there starting in K, but he gave in to me and we stuck with private. When we visited private schools everything was hunky dory in my book and I found no faults because I didn't want to see any faults. Now that I am a bit older and a bit wiser, I realize the truth is that no school is perfect.

My children still have art twice a week, PE twice a week, music twice a week, and library once a week in their public school. They have 20 children and two teachers in their classrooms. We have the time to play more with children in our neighborhood.

The best part is that I am able to stay home (I was working in a low paying, yet fulfilling field before) and I feel like I know much more about what is going on in my children's lives. I take them to school every morning, greet them at the bus at the end of the day, we can do after school activities, and we are eating much healthier because I actually have time to cook. In addition, we are so much less stressed financially. We are saving more, donating more, and are simply in a much better state of financial "health."

In closing, there are some wonderful private schools out there. We loved our old school and our children grew so much while they were there. However, there are really, really great public school options, as well. In the end you need to make the best decision for your family.

20 kids with two teachers? Which public school is this?

Campbell Elementary in Arlington. It's the county's Expeditionary Learning school. My children are in K/1 (they have mixed age classes at that level).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP didn't ask if it could be done for less. She asked where it would be comfortable. I think below $500K you have to cut costs significantly somewhere, although if you don't both work that changes the calculus considerably because you need less outside help and have time to shop for better and cheaper alternatives to what is quickest to buy/order. It depends on the particular circumstances of the family in question.

What costs would you have to cut if you only had $300,000? Yes, you might have to sell the beach house, but not if you never bought one to start with.

We have a HHI of $300,000, and I don't see how we could possibly send two kids to private school comfortably. Our mortgage is $4500 (which affords us a nice, but not extravagent, house), we have no car payments, no school debt and NO BEACH HOUSE (I wish!). After taxes, health insurance, bills, approx. $1800/month for our pt nanny (so I can work), savings for college and retirement, and a comfortable- think no fancy trips, but we don't watch our pennies on things like food- living, there's not much (if any) left over at the end of the month. Once we no longer had the nanny, we could probably manage to send one child to private school without having to make too many sacrifices. But to come come with an extra $30,000/year after taxes to send the second one would require a major lifestyle adjustment like moving to a smaller house and/or not saving a penny for college and retirement. I wouldn't consider this "comfortable."

It is kind of ridiculous to think that with a HHI of $300K, you can't find $30K to send your child to private school (if you wanted). You are over-spending somewhere. We earn $230K and send one to private ($30K) and live comfortably. I'm guessing that the difference is in housing. We bought small, but close in, so our mortgage is under $3500, and we don't have a nanny. We use after-care, which is much cheaper. I think that with two children, I would want to add an additional $75K (private school, college savings, etc.) to our HHI.

So you're saying you'd want about $305K to send two kids to private school and you live in a small house so that your mortgage is low. I just said that on $300K we couldn't come up with an extra $60K to send two kids to private school without making big sacrifices like moving to a small house. I don't consider that "comfortably" affording private school. Comfortably affording, to me, means not having to make any big sacrifices like living in a small house, or stressing out to make our after school arrangements work (I also think a nanny would be the same or cheaper than sending 2 to aftercare, no?). While I certainly understand why one would sacrifice to afford private (believe me, I've thought about it and may do it yet), my understanding of OP's question is at what point could you manage it without sacrificing anything big. I would guess that number would be at least $400-500K.

[Anonymous]

I agree with the $500 K for two. This may seem like a lot if you look at it as a one time expense, but tuition will only go up, and possibly more than your earnings, so if you in for the the long haul plus college, I'd say 500 K is about right. When our youngest was in K we made half of that - and we sent both kids to public for elementary. I was very happy with the education they received, but have been happy to make the sacrifice for middle school, and plan to continue private through HS if we are able to sustain this income level. Our mortgage is slightly less than $3,000 but we are also helping out my mother-in-law in various ways which were unexpected. You never know what life will bring your way, so I'd say a little padding, whether for life brings your way, or for the future, is well worth the security. I would never want to place my kids in the position that we are in.....but living above your means for an extended period of time would do just that. Just another thing to consider.

[Anonymous]

You can do it on $400K.

Sample Monthly Expenses:

Mortgage: $4K
Tuition: $6K
Utilities: $1K
Retirement: $3K
College Savings $2K
Food/Sundries: $3K
Insurance/Health: $1K
"Cushion": $5K

Total: $25K x 12: $300K after taxes, around $400K before.

I think that this is a comfortable, but not extravagant budget.

[Anonymous]

Here's what we do on $150K:

Mortgage: $1500 (close in, bought in 1994)
Health: $800
Tuition for 1 kid: $3K
Utilities: $600
Retirement: $1300
College Savings $400
Food/Sundries/charity: $4K
"Cushion": 0

We just meet expenses every month, or even go in the red $1K or so, but that includes funding TSP to the max and some college 529. We have substantial savings, retirement and investments from pre-private school life ~$800K that is our cushion and we dip in occasionally, which is what we planned to do. We are still cutting back in a number of areas which I hope will keep us from dipping. Tax refund, work bonuses etc. provide the cushion.

[Anonymous]

you could easily, easily do it on 400k.
we have HHI (single income) of $225k and easily afford one 25k tuition. Add in another $175 pre taxes and we could afford another 2 kids in private.
Mortgage is about $3500/month all included. No other debt.

Those needing $500k are living luxuriously, not comfortably.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:you could easily, easily do it on 400k.
we have HHI (single income) of $225k and easily afford one 25k tuition. Add in another $175 pre taxes and we could afford another 2 kids in private.
Mortgage is about $3500/month all included. No other debt.

Those needing $500k are living luxuriously, not comfortably.

I agree.

[Anonymous]

15:32 here. Although, I would say that burdensome school loans (e.g., medical school + law school) or having to support grandparents could tip the balance.

[Anonymous]

We send two kids to private school on income of about $240K, after taxes. Mortgage is about $3500. We pinch pennies in some areas (one car, bought used, not much travel, not much eating out, inexpensive clothes, do-it-yourself household repairs, look for big-ticket items like furniture on Craigslist). Don't pinch pennies in other areas, like weekly groceries (organic, farm market), charity, kids activities, cleaning help. Feel lucky to have the choice and don't regret it one bit.