What’s the best way to plan for school fees?

The last thing you want to happen is to place your children in private education only to have to up root them back into the state system part way through their education.

Most people depend on their on going income to pay the fees. Ensure you have a good financial plan, or have taken advice from an independent financial adviser to safe guard your income. You should have both a back up fund and insurance plans such as income protection, unemployment insurance and term insurance in the event of a reduction in your income stream due to redundancy, illness, death of a parent or a business problem if you run your own business.

When should you start saving towards school fees?

Obviously the earlier you start saving towards paying for school fees the better as the larger your fund the better you will be able to ride out any income fluctuations.

What sort of investments are the most suitable for paying school fees?

It depends on your circumstances, good financial advice and investment advice is essential. A mix of the best cash ISAs and stocks and shares ISAs are likely to provide a good starting point in your investment portfolio unless you are fully utilising them for other purposes.

Are the grandparents willing and able to contribute to school fees?

Grandparents contributing to their grand children’s education can utilise extremely tax efficient methods of both funding school fees and avoiding potential Inheritance tax. The planning and implementation can be fairly complex so discuss it with us or another or financial planner.

The grandparents are probably part of our wealthy retired group of millionaire clients. Their financial planning will obviously have to take precedent but our family financial plans are set up specifically with this kind of planning in mind.

What about business owners paying school fees for their own children?

Business owners of Limited companies can use some very unusual tax saving (but absolutely legal) and planning ideas to fund their own children’s school fees and university fees. Sorry but this is too complex to explain here so please call us if you are interested.

Any questions on school fees planning?

Please call us on 01582 839280 or Email us.