Comment by boothead | Hacker News Reader

Comment by boothead | Hacker News Reader

I just about to buy a house outside of London. I'm also about to send my 2 kids to private school as all the decent local state schools are full with waiting lists (thankfully a lot cheaper than the figures mentioned here). I had a look at one of the options for commuting into London. This is the quickest option from where I am (via HS1). I'm already up to the following monthly expenses:

Mortgage: £3200

School Fees: £1375

Travel: £450 (next cheapest is £300)

Insurance: ~£300 (Critical Illness, Life insurance)

Bills: £1500 (guestimate)

These are a mix of expenses I'll have to pay personally, and some that I can pay as business expenses.

So I'm up to £7k monthly outgoings already, without even trying. In reality I'll need to add another £3k ish for loan repayments and other bits. As a contractor I'm able to be quite tax efficient, but as a single salary earner, http://www.thesalarycalculator.co.uk/salary.php tells me I'd need to be earning > £200k to cover this.

I could economize. I could get a cheaper car for example and I could have bought a cheaper house - the one I'm buying certainly isn't a palace though.

But, yeah - London is expensive!

School fees for two of £1375 a month seems pretty reasonable compared to what I thought. What kind of standard of school do you get for that? What age? Day or boarding? Does that include things like uniforms, sports and trips?

It's a small independent primary school founded 80 years ago and still located in the original founder's house (and out buildings). It's a non-profit so all fees go to the upkeep of the school. Classes are about 15 students. Those fees don't include any trips or uniforms I don't think, and it's about a mile from the house we're buying so it's definitely day :-)

The main thing that's attractive about it is the focus on the "person development" side of the child's education (in addition to excellent academics). Last time I went to my oldest daughter's parents evening the whole content was: "Well, she's at so-and-so percentile for this subject and such-and-such metric this and that". Nothing at all about how she is as a person, or anything beyond the metrics that Ofstead judges schools on. She's 7!

I earn 1400euros of net income monthly. My mother earns around 500euros of net income monthly. Thank you for showing me my shitlife in Slovakia :)

It isn't all that - I didn't mention that I feel pretty scared about the prospect of hanging that noose around my neck for ~ 25 years. Once I'm on the hook for this much money I'm pretty much tied in to a certain type of job for a certain type of (big) company in a small geographic area that mostly necessitates a long commute. I haven't yet convinced my self that I'm making the right choice vs the frugal/simple life with more freedom.

Time will tell I guess.

Really? A mortgage repayment £3200 implies a mortgage amount of £800,000.

Most people I know don't have houses costing that much, even in London.

for a family home near London? I could see it coming close to that.

I have a small deposit :-)

My mortgage is nearer £600k

How the fuck are you spending £1,500 on bills per month?

What bills are you including there - just utility and ctax, or food as well?

Bad terminology: I meant food and utilities.

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