Comparison Monthly Expenses List

Ui interesting:
Loans: 1700 €
Water: 30 €
Electricity: 87 €
Heat pump electricity: 66 €
Children's daycare fees: 755 €
Mobile phone, Internet, Cloud, Netflix, ...: 163 €
Insurance, ADAC, vehicle tax: 428 €
Maintenance: 650 €
Child's hobby: 8 €
Property tax, sewage, garbage: 95 €
---------------------------
Total costs 3,982 €

Income: 5170 € salary + 425 € child benefit + 77 € hearing impaired assistance

In the end, that leaves about 1700 € left over for everything else.

In my opinion, the lists are still missing other items such as gardening tools, fertilizer, plants, household appliances, DVDs, books (including schoolbooks, exercise books), class trips (we paid 450 euros for the last one + pocket money), household appliances and other things for the household, birthday presents, decorative items, and much more; usually quite a bit adds up.

Best regards
Sabine

In the listings, in my opinion, other things are still missing, such as garden tools, fertilizer, plants, household appliances, DVDs, books (including school books, workbooks), class trips (we paid 450 euros for the last one + pocket money), household appliances and other things for the household, birthday presents, decorative items, and much more, usually quite a bit adds up.

Best regards
Sabine

Maybe because it has to come off what remains after the fixed costs. These items are so variable that they are very difficult to calculate. For example, garden stuff adds up more for us in the summer, then nothing in the winter months. Household appliances are also rather on demand and not a regular expense.

The nice thing is, when you have a surplus of 1700€ (which is quite decent), you don't have to plan for things like a broken washing machine. It’s simply paid for out of the monthly liquidity, and that’s it. You can also over-plan yourself to death. With such a cushion, that is unnecessary. Money simply isn’t a stress factor then. It only leads to dead capital if you attach a purpose to every euro. Thousands of euros rot in the daily savings account because something might happen at some point... that makes you unfree.

The nice thing is, if you have a surplus of €1700 (which is quite respectable), you don't have to plan for things like a broken washing machine. It just gets paid out of the monthly liquidity and that's that.

It's not a real liquidity calculation yet – things like food, clothing, and mobility are missing. Otherwise, agreed.

I think the tighter the overall budget is, the more you have to budget in order to be able to react to unforeseen (smaller) problems. Especially since during or after the house construction, you somehow always find a "hole" where you could still put the money... special repayments, subsequent purchases, ... If, as mentioned above, I have €1700 left every month after deducting fixed costs, I can surely be very relaxed – the cushion accumulates almost by itself in the account and at the end of the year you can consider what to do with it. If it’s only €300, then I rather have to create an actual reserve (and initially save for it specifically) in order to be able to pay for a major car repair or the new washing machine.