Construction financing... yes or no...

The question is quite justified: I had already expressed my doubts, but I didn’t pursue them further because I know that something like this can work, or rather, must work in many families.
Especially here in Germany, we have a lot of very cheap food.
We can buy pasta for 29 cents per 500 grams, flour for 19 cents per kilo, potatoes, if you buy them in a big sack, for 50 cents per kilo.
Frozen pizzas are available from 1 € and apples, the 5-kilo package, for 1.99 € at the discount store.
My favorite topic, meat: Here you get pork per kilo for 6 €, often even cheaper on sale.
Whoever knows how to cook can also get good meat at affordable prices... shank slices, beef brisket, offal... German consumers are not willing to pay money for that, so
most butchers “mince” that stuff.
Anyone who has ever bought meat in a normal supermarket in France will be amazed... even the simplest beef cuts cost around 20 €/kilo here... with that, you can almost get
the filet at home (albeit of worse quality).
Also Metro, if you have an ID, can save you a lot of money when it comes to meat... keyword bulk packages. Restaurants often don’t pay more than 6 €/kilo for schnitzel, and 10 €/kilo for rump steak... brilliant profit margin?

But it is indeed the case that 300 € is just barely the minimum if you even include cosmetics, toothbrushes, and toilet paper in that.
I watch our shopping behavior very closely and pay attention to prices... but we rarely manage to stay below 600 € per month. This money then includes everything we spend in supermarkets, drugstores (since the child, we are constantly there), and beverage markets.
Additionally, some cash is spent on lunch at the company or at the bakery. Not infrequently, we approach 800 €.

We are pleasure seekers and pay attention to what ends up on our plates. That includes daily fruits and vegetables, and when it comes to meat, then real meat, not this neon meat from the display freezer. We either buy directly from the butcher (mixed package 25 € per kilo Bioland Angus beef) or get the meat from the hunter, or go to selected butchers who still slaughter themselves in the backyard. I know there aren’t many of those anymore, but if you have the chance, you should take it. For example, I pay almost 11 € per kilo for our ground meat, but I also know what’s inside because it is freshly ground before my eyes... (Anyone who has grilled burgers with such meat will never want to do it differently again :))
Or we often go to France and raid the excellent fish stands there... saving money by buying the fish uncleaned... a gilthead bream costs 6 €/kilo there.

The argument about children fits here too... since we have our child at home, we eat more regularly and, above all, healthier... Parents who feed those baby jars should try them once... disgusting.
This year we have grown a lot of vegetables ourselves and canned them the classic way. Thus, we often have the chance to make a very inexpensive dinner.

I think everyone should calculate with about 500 €. That is realistically achievable in the long run, if you control yourself and your shopping.
What everyone must consider: food becomes more and more expensive. Just two weeks ago, it was reported everywhere that bad weather and such caused the high price increases for vegetables.
And if you actually look at what you sometimes pay for onions and potatoes when you don’t pay attention, you’ll feel sick. I recently bought a net of onions with 5 small onions and paid 2.99 € for it... they were probably free-range, happy onions.

And the older the children get, the bigger the hunger :) Our little one, at 14 months, is already constantly hungry, but I would be as well if I were running around all the time :)

Hello,

this is actually off topic; only gladly admitted, interesting :D

Cost of living: We now have €300 for groceries and we manage very well with that, often there is something left at the end of the month and we don’t spend much more...

Then I am too dumb to manage or your statement really refers "only" to groceries and thus excludes "affordable" items like coffee, washing and cleaning products :confused:

I always turn pale when I see what my sister-in-law in Bavaria has to pay "just" for meat - I have already suggested a regular delivery service via DHL; of course only in winter - the salaries there are also significantly lower - so everything is relative. My sister-in-law lives and works near Straubing.

There are only two of us now; our granddaughter on the weekend therefore doesn’t really count towards the cost of living, although at almost 3 years old she can already make a good impact. There is hardly a weekly shopping trip where I manage to spend less than €80.00; if coffee, detergent or toiletries are on the shopping list, it easily reaches €100.00. I do not include work-related eating out - sometimes in the middle of nowhere, but welcomed because late. However, I have to say that I largely avoid Aldi & Co.; just looking at their vegetable section makes me queasy.

Meat is also a topic - the few times I have served myself at the refrigerated counters, I have always been annoyed after cooking or frying; realizing that despite the seemingly cheap purchase, I had actually lost money. Not to mention that I think this meat simply does not taste good.

What we eat should have its own distinctive taste; distinguishable from the rest of the plate. It starts with simple things like potatoes or onions and ends with meat or fish. My latest highlight - we accompanied our daughter to shop at a Kaufland - I wanted to take the opportunity to buy some cold cuts; the meat and cheese counter there is impressive. I am not a fan of cooked ham, so I make sure to get butcher’s ham. But in the counter there was only that cooked ham, where I have no idea what exactly has been cooked into it; besides, it just looks nicely shiny everywhere. When I pointed out that this was not butcher’s ham, I got the answer: "This is certainly our butcher’s ham". I then refrained from any further purchases, although the extensive cheese selection at the counter tempted me.

What I want to say is – if you buy only the cheapest products everywhere (which I don't even have time for) and take the risk of not knowing what ends up on the plate, then €300.00 for living expenses may be enough. If you carry even a little care and interest in the purchases, their origin, composition – the sum on the receipt looks completely different. And whoever now argues that detergent from Aldi also does its job, I say: sure. But white laundry probably has to be renewed more often per year than it is in our household.

Rhenish greetings

So far, we have managed with €250-€300.
Our weekly shopping always amounted to between €35 and €40. However, that already included cosmetic items. In addition, there is bread/rolls and sometimes fruit and vegetables, which are bought during the week.
On the weekends, a bit more was cooked each time, so the lunch for 1-2 days during the week was covered. The remaining days were then eaten in the canteen. For us, the prices in the canteen range from €2.50 to €4.40, which is still very reasonable compared to other regions in Germany.
I would say that we eat relatively balanced and don’t always buy the cheapest things. But of course, it’s not premium meat like in DerDa.

Since our little one has been born, the demand for diapers, wipes, and clothing has naturally gone up. Thanks to MuMi, the costs for food are still manageable. And the fact that we can’t like the jarred food is probably less about the products and much more about our “spoiled” taste buds and, of course, the appearance. The manufacturers are definitely more strictly controlled than the vegetables in the store. Leaving aside homegrown produce for now.

Anyone who has ever bought meat in a regular supermarket in France will be stunned... even the simplest beef cuts cost around 20 €/kilo here... you can almost get filet (of correspondingly lower quality) from us for that.

or we often go to France and raid the excellent fish stands there... saving money by buying fish not gutted... A sea bream then costs 6 €/kilo.

The argument about children fits too... since we have our child at home, we eat more regularly and above all healthier... Parents who feed those baby jars should try them themselves... disgusting.
This year we grew a lot of vegetables and canned them in the classic way. That way we often have the chance to make a very affordable dinner.

Since our little one was born, of course the demand for diapers, wipes, and clothes has increased.
And that the jarred food can’t taste good to us is probably less about the products and much more about our "spoiled" taste buds and, of course, the appearance.

Interesting discussion, even if it only touches the OP’s question tangentially.

In general, I have found for us that the standards for nutrition have developed according to income. In the past, I never bought or made fresh fish. Today there is either self-caught (in the fjord of Norway) or bought abroad. The supermarket fish counter there is amazing – I have never seen such an extensive and high-quality fish counter in Germany.

I can confirm DerDa’s observation regarding the “low prices” for food in Germany. Around us (excluding Poland and the Czech Republic), food sometimes costs significantly more.

When the house is finally built and the garden is ready, some vegetables will probably be grown ourselves – but that will take some time.

Jarred baby food – it’s not only about the “spoiled” taste buds but generally also because the food for babies and toddlers is not or only mildly seasoned. I think that’s good – because 1. the taste buds have to develop first, 2. (to my knowledge) not every spice is suitable for children, and 3. as Musketier wrote, the already developed taste buds of toddlers are not yet so “spoiled.”
That’s it from me off-topic – it was just so interesting.

I’ll dare to quickly get back to the topic:

We’ve now had months of planning time (it’s actually going to be an extension plus renovation and barn expansion :-)) and I’ve crunched all the numbers repeatedly, keeping a precise budget book down to the cent for 2 years, and therefore I venture to predict that your construction project won’t fail because of the milk price or the outrageously expensive margarine, but simply because of the far too low income. At the slightest financial pebble, your financing will collapse and you won’t know which building society savings account to break first. Also, the rate will have to be about €1250 and your interest rate without equity will… well, not be that great.

I’ve only skimmed through all the posts, so it’s possible that this has all been said before or that I’m not completely up to date, in which case sorry.

Otherwise: hands off or save!

Regards,

Leon