My wife and I have recently been school shopping for our son and we’ve been fortunate enough to consider a public and private school in our area. One thing we’ve noticed though is that we’re not prepared enough for the costs involved outside the public school system. No matter how we budget for private school fees and the extras that come along with it i.e. excursions, sporting etc. It’s way more than we expected. Couple that with how the banks now review all your expenses to work out how much you can borrow, I think we’ll need a much smarter approach.

How to prepare for school fees

Do your research early

Start your research as early as possible. Some schools have a waiting list that’s so long you’ll have to enrol your unborn child so you don’t miss out. It’s good to have all the information from all the schools you’re considering, as this’ll prepare you for how much money you’ll actually need when they start school.

Budget early

Once you find out exactly how much the school fees are, you should draw up a budget. Also don’t forget extracurricular activities such as sports, excursions, uniforms, donations to the school, tutoring etc. These fees should be calculated for the life of the child’s schooling and multiplied if you have more than one child or planning to have more than one child. This should be done as soon as you can, the earlier the better.

How to budget for it?

Now that you know the potential cost of your child’s education you can start planning or saving for it from now, the sooner you start the better.

You can plan to save the annual fees from now every year in a savings or offset account so you can be a couple of years ahead of when you have to start paying actual fees.

If you’ve broken down the annual costs into weekly/fortnightly or monthly payments and start putting aside those payments into a savings account or offset account you’ll see how you feel about the payments and whether you can maintain them. This will give you a real-life example of what it will be like when you have to start paying school fees.

Even if your child attends a public school where fees are minimal, it’s important to budget for the costs early.

An investment in knowledge pays the best interest. Benjamin Franklin

Thank you for reading.