Hi, I’m Christopher Hall, founder of Arrow Equities. If you’ve ever asked yourself:

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• Can I afford private schooling for my child?

• How much will private school fees be when my child gets there?

• Will my job be enough to pay for private school fees for our children?

• Can I dip into my mortgage to cover school fees?

• When should I start saving for school fees, and how much do I save and where?

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then you’ve been asking yourself the same questions my wife and I were.

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When planning for our children’s schooling we wanted to know ‘exactly how fast are private school fees increasing?’:

 

A friend of ours said: “I know my own parents struggled to put my sisters and I through private schools, but looking at what we’re paying now as a percentage of our family income, my parents had it easy!”.

 

In anticipation of my own kids going to private schools, I decided to find out whether common complaints were merely parents exaggerating or whether there was truth was behind it and how much.

 

In my research I found that by the time a child born today is in year 12, their private school fees would be more than the average Australian wage – before taxes. Gulp.

 

This shocked me along with the other parents I have shared the research findings with. So here are my findings for you.

 

How can we afford school fees?

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Recently one parent of a child in Sydney private school described the school as “becoming ridiculously elitist” and said “You just can’t afford to pay the fees, you have to be a merchant banker or a partner in a law firm”

 

Despite having received similar insights from numerous friends with older children, my wife and I are continuing with our decision to put both of our children into private schools from year 7 through to year 12.

 

My wife had done the research on the potential schools, and then she delegated the job of creating the savings plan to pay for these school fees to me.

 

I got to work on this plan – literally. I work in finance and have helped start, manage and run numerous financial planning, trading and stock broking desks over my career. So, this was, quite literally, another day(s) in the office for me.

 

What is the best plan?

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When researching the best possible plan to save for private school fees, I explored all viable (and legal!) avenues and laid out all the findings in a Private School Fees Affordability Review. I’ve also created a few tools to help you DIY your own family’s plan.

 

After reading this you’ll know:

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• Why your current job is not enough of a savings plan;

• When to start saving for private school fees;

• Why, how and when to invest

• How to manage the investments over time

• The ‘too hard basket’: how to find someone to do it all for you and what to pay them.

 

Download here.

 

P.S. A word of warning - my research is detailed.  I went into great detail because the issue is important to me and I wanted to address as many unknowns as possible.

 

P.P.S. This is not about whether private schools are ‘worth it’, or complaining about how expensive they are. No doubt your family will discuss these issues and arrive at your own conclusion, just like we did. This document is for those of you who are open to sending their children to private school and would like to know more about how to plan for these expenses.

 

Here is the download link again.

 

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