Construction costs are currently skyrocketing

That's how it is. I am a banker and have never done any manual work in my entire life. In our new build, I plastered ceilings for the first time, laid floors, applied roll plaster, sealed acrylic and silicone joints, installed electrical wiring (under supervision), built a terrace, and created splash protection. It's all possible if you just want to. Of course, you have to sacrifice time for it. Sometimes all weekends for weeks were used up. But it was worth it to me, and I was able to save quite a bit of money.

That is really the biggest difference. In our area, even sowing grass is too complicated for some people. Is it fundamentally a lack of willingness to sacrifice? I'm not so sure. It feels like (especially my generation) is being taught to be dependent, to delegate responsibility to the state or a company, and to buy every service (turnkey construction, bike leasing with repair service, insurance cancellation service). The gained time is then spent on Instagram and TikTok, or invested in a career as a high performer.

Roofing is not rocket science either, the difficult part is getting the battens correctly positioned. But after several attempts, we managed it as laymen as well. But when I look at the bill... calculated dishonestly, I probably saved 3-4k on the garden house. Honestly calculated, with all the small stuff and all the trips, it's probably more like half. For 2 people who were busy for a week (with working hours I wouldn't allow at my company ;) ), it's not that great anymore. During the week I was basically only home to sleep. The killer for us is also the travel time, with a three-quarter hour to the construction site, that only works on weekends (which are very few) and holidays.

Originally, I had considered setting up the carport before moving in so that we would have a dry place to unload during the move. But after the experience, that will be postponed until we live on site.

I think the hardest part is not falling off the roof :p. Nah, we won’t do that. Our roof is a good 12m high, if that’s enough. When I say "roof," I’m not talking about roofing a shed (we did that with bitumen here), but rather the house.

you can put it another way: in the past, a household had to dedicate 40-50 hours a week to work. Today it is already 2x39 hours. On the one hand, this leads to higher income; on the other hand, there are now fewer hours to “run the household” or in other words, if everyone works all day anyway, why then have a property for so much money (in Germany).

I believe that even today the 40-50 hours you described might be enough if the standard of living were still the same. In the timeframe you described, telecommunications and entertainment costs alone were completely different. Back then, a household had, if anything, a telephone and a television, for which only the GEZ fee was due. Today every household has a landline with a DSL flat rate, one mobile phone per adult or teenager, plus Netflix or another streaming service. Costs nowadays in this area alone are many times higher than before.

This example can be applied to various other areas such as cars, holidays, leisure activities, technology in general, home furnishings, house size, garden design.

Not to mention that people who could live on one salary in those good old days now complain about old-age poverty because hardly any money was left to save during their working phase and women—oh dear—receive hardly any pension. If the husband dies beforehand, things suddenly look bleak with just the widow’s pension, and the money is nowhere near enough.

I also doubt that nowadays two people have to work full-time to make a living. Of course, if both work full-time, there is more money and life is more relaxed. You can get by well with 60 hours per week if both are not working at minimum wage. And no, I don’t believe this is much different in metropolitan areas. For my job, if I were to do it in Munich, I would receive 25% more salary directly from my employer due to various allowances.

In our village, we have district heating. According to the price sheet for heat supply, there is a price increase of a total of 5.44 cents net per kWh. These are gas procurement surcharge + gas storage surcharge + balancing surcharge. The legislator states that all surcharges should cost a total of 3.048 cents net. Calling the municipal utilities has brought nothing – no one has answered for 4 days. Is the price sheet correct or should I contact the cartel office?

How about writing an email instead of calling?

You don’t become rich by the money you earn, but by the money you don’t spend.

Therefore, I consider any income discussion questionable. I hardly earn 1500 euros net and have adjusted to that. But I have a nice and above all quiet job with the best working hours and a short commute. A company car for private use rounds off the package. And while years ago I spent my time in traffic jams in the Bavarian big city, today I am at the latest by 3:30 pm relaxed in my pool enjoying the day.

So what? No loans, no vehicle costs, almost no energy costs and enough time. With that, 1500 net looks quite different.

I have always bought the machines and equipment I needed for building. Now I am pretty much done and am selling them, of course, significantly more expensive due to inflation than what I bought them for. The profit alone should essentially cover the material costs. And I was often in hardware stores and somehow bought everything together.

For example, I was once at Globus and came across a door clearance sale. Every door 10 euros. Exactly the country house doors I needed there. Some of these were doors with glazing that regularly cost 500 euros each. Paid 120 euros for all interior doors. 1800 for all my windows (Schüco stulp windows). 15 euros for the heating, 4000 for the kitchen, which should be known here. Parquet throughout the whole house, second choice for 1000 euros. 36 Poroton second choice directly from Wienerberger at the factory for 45 euros per pallet (60 bricks). Mostly sanitary ware as well as window sills and fireplace etc. bought very cheaply on vacation in Croatia. Marble for the bathroom directly in Italy. Rosso Verona, if that means anything to anyone.

And that’s how I bought the whole house piece by piece. But you have to move your own butt for that. But just as a side note.

Interest rates are still very favorable. We will soon see interest rates around 10 percent here as well. In the USA, 12 percent is already being calculated now. So get cracking. Buying and paying for land is very important. You can start early with that. Whoever has 5000 family income can realize something like that in a relatively short time. You just have to save.

Then buy a wheelbarrow and a shovel and start. The rest will come by itself.