Home financing ever possible? Probably not!

You can calculate it: How much more do you earn than your father at your age per hour(!), what does that make in %/year calculated on the age difference to your father? Compound interest calculation, of course. Then you know the gross purchasing power gain. All excluding cold progression (negative effect) as well as the new technology that is available today (positive effect).

I find it funny because I have had this debate with "the old man" quite often. Then I am told that with 150m² for 4 people, including 10m² office and 6m² utility room, I am completely exaggerating. He had previously lived with 7 people in 100m², which was also completely sufficient.

And there you already see where the "problem" lies. The demands of the post-war generation are completely different from those of Generation Y, which I belong to. A children's room of the post-war generation was at best 10m², shared with 2-3 siblings. Our children's rooms in the 80s already had 10m² per child. And today, 14m² per child is considered the minimum standard.

You can calculate for yourself the salary increase needed just to meet this "minimum"...

Well, the prejudice swingers keep knocking out one after another here. By the way, my used 350€ TV has been running with me for 12 years now and will do so until it gives up the ghost. For our child, we have only used second hand so far, for clothes and furniture. Our household is a mix with some furniture from our childhood rooms. We go out to eat at most once every 3 months, we cook for the week in advance so I don’t even spend money in the canteen. But it’s fine, discussions are pointless.

Somehow, that's not the case in my bubble today either. Hm.

I also somehow wonder what I did wrong (or right?), that most people around me, including us, neither go on vacation x times a year, nor just replace all the furniture for fun, or constantly eat out and go shopping.

Oh yes, when beer still cost 50 Pfennig and children still played with chestnuts and matches. Today my boy can buy his own 365cm trampoline and gives his mother 50 EUR for Christmas. But my PC is over 10 years old and I mainly buy my clothes at Lidl. On the other hand, I eat twice a week for 20 EUR during lunch breaks when I am at the office. My TV is 6 years old but 60 inches big. Most of my shoes are at least 5 years old, but I probably have 10 pairs. A week ago I bought new underwear again. Good socks that don’t slip down are so hard to find. Let’s be clear, some things are different, some things are the same, and some things are simply not comparable. The average standard has risen, but the average working hours of a family in dependent employment probably have too. Everyone has the choice to change something on either side of the household budget. I would claim that there are more possibilities to do so today than in the past (in terms of variety), while the ladders often no longer reach as high. My father was able to advance from elementary school (equivalent to today’s Hauptschule) through apprenticeship and foreign assignment up to Regional Senior Vice President of a large forwarding company. I would claim that such a thing is no longer possible today. So society is becoming less permeable. Social milieus are solidifying. I at least went from a long-term student to middle management. I can’t complain, but it’s quite unlikely that I will become a CEO (and I’m not talking about a two-person start-up).

Well, my bubble is also firmly convinced to buy only the absolute essentials. But then it's the used woom bike, which is even more expensive than the pucky. Or it's the most expensive reboarder, since safety is the most important thing. And exactly these friends see themselves as the losers of politics. After the second half of the year, there is only one topic left. That you can't afford anything anymore with >5000 net. Don't get me wrong, I also find our tax and levy burden awful, since there are no tax-saving tricks for us, but I don't feel like I'm currently experiencing downward social mobility because the children aren't participating in ski lessons this year and for the first time in 8 years we don't have a season pass.

The used Woom bike is truly a very good investment and can later be resold without losses. The Puky, on the other hand, can almost be given away.

The problem I see is more that people often buy very expensive consumer goods and do not want to turn their old items into cash in time. That leaves a lot of money on the table.

I actually buy almost everything used, but we definitely did not skimp on the child car seat. I’d rather use my €266 Chinese TV for another 10 years and save on things like that.