How do you afford private school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Worked like a dog all my life,saved , and invested every dime and I woke-up one day rich which was a bit of a shock because I was born poor.

I'm not a member of any country club and fly under the radar at the school. People are a bit perplexed because I show up at all the big donor events and and see that the scenesters are puzzled and can't figure out what I'm doing there.

I love this!

[Anonymous]

I only looked at schools under $20k tuition, only have one kid, and don’t plan to do it forever (only while his needs can’t be met in public). $16k a year is the same as daycare was, and it is easily doable on $200k.

[Anonymous]

We are paying for private for 4 kids. We make high six figures/low seven figures depending on the year. Even with our high income, with 4 kids, it’s still a significant financial impact.

Most families are in similarly wealthy situations. Some are extremely wealthy, making our lifestyle look modest.

[Anonymous]

We have two kids and make about 400k a year and it’s incredibly hard. We barely save otherwise and it’s stressful but public school didn’t work for our kids and they are thriving.

[Anonymous]

Parochial schools, very few vacations, minimal college savings (should be easily able to cash flow state schools, though), super tight rein on the budget for any other expenses. A little help from a lovely Godmother. We max out all retirement savings, though. That was non-negotiable for us.

To be fair, we got on the private school train in a much lower cost of living state. Tuition for three kids was a hair under $7k a year. Add a couple more kids, a job transfer, aging up into high school, etc, we’re swiftly approaching $40k. I honestly try not to think of the lifestyle I’d have with the extra money. You can’t really miss what you’ve never had, and the environment has done good things for our kids.

[Anonymous]

Worked our butts off.

[Anonymous]

A combination of only one child and help from grandparents who pay the school directly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Worked like a dog all my life,saved , and invested every dime and I woke-up one day rich which was a bit of a shock because I was born poor.

I'm not a member of any country club and fly under the radar at the school. People are a bit perplexed because I show up at all the big donor events and and see that the scenesters are puzzled and can't figure out what I'm doing there.

So you’re saying you do not fly under the radar.

I also was born broke, worked hard, and have plenty of money to send my kids to private. I have nothing to prove to anyone else. And because I’m young and ambitious you won’t catch me at any big donor events. What a waste of my precious time.

[Anonymous]

We did an affordable private for $12K a year and we bought the cheapest house we could find so mortgage was $2K a month. Its all about how you choose to spend your money.

[Anonymous]

Once the over extended crowd goes broke you’ll find getting into the country club becomes much easier and much cheaper.

That said a complete waste of money unless your firm pays for it and still it gets boring.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We have two kids and make about 400k a year and it’s incredibly hard. We barely save otherwise and it’s stressful but public school didn’t work for our kids and they are thriving.

How do you not save anything on that kind of income? You need to change your lifestyle. That makes no sense.

[Anonymous]

We have a low mortgage and very little credit card debt. Make about $300k. Have one in private and one in daycare. Altogether about $45,000 for both and will probably put the youngest in public school as we can see already he would do fine in public.

[Anonymous]

Tuition for Catholic school is way less than that (K-8) - about 7-11k a school year, plus discounts for siblings. For us, it's basically the same price as daycare-- which we just keep telling ourselves its basically paying daycare until they both reach 8th grade (high school is a different story)

My Colleague kid goes to a private school which is like 30k a year - and he was able to get financial aid for 1 person income of 140K for 1 kid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have two kids and make about 400k a year and it’s incredibly hard. We barely save otherwise and it’s stressful but public school didn’t work for our kids and they are thriving.

How do you not save anything on that kind of income? You need to change your lifestyle. That makes no sense.

I’m pretty sure PP must have significant mortgage debt.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We have a low mortgage and very little credit card debt. Make about $300k. Have one in private and one in daycare. Altogether about $45,000 for both and will probably put the youngest in public school as we can see already he would do fine in public.

OP here, isn't private supposed to be much better than public? Is your child in private more advanced or less advanced? Sorry if I'm not phrasing correctly, english is not my first language.