House buying - No idea what one can afford

I don't use anything at all and still know where my money goes....

You speak from the heart...

I just got the feeling that it would be irresponsible not to keep such a thing / program / household budget book

And to the OP my tip:

Open a daily allowance account and start saving. As long as there is no concrete property/land available (which can often take quite a while), keep paying the installments normally so that less money is available to spend/waste.

If there is a one hundred percent intention to buy, then repay the outstanding installment loans with the savings (the remaining debt will be less by then) and use the rest for the financing.

I also recommend that you think in advance about what you want to afford and not what you can afford.
So for example, does it have to be a detached house or would a semi-detached house or a terraced house also be an option?
How many sqm should the property have and how many rooms? Is a garden with a play area for the children enough or do you want to open a pony farm?

This is how we made a plan, then said goodbye to building and focused on existing properties. According to the bank we could have gotten 400k, but we set our max budget at 250k. We then privately bought a semi-detached house built in 2007 as an existing property for 235k through a newspaper ad.

I wish you much success!

Do you have 10,000 consumer credit plus student loan plus BAföG or 10,000 all-in?

No, about 10k currently still outstanding which is already being paid off. That still includes a tiered loan. BAföG will come at some point, 10k, from my wife.

So I’m pretty sure that by the end of the year we’ll have paid off all outstanding loans (except BAföG). Then we’d be at zero total, excluding the car as mentioned, and then BAföG will come eventually. I’m not yet familiar with how repayment, interest, and amortization work there.

But the trend would be at the beginning of the year and when BAföG comes, to simply pay that off as well. I’d rather get that out of the way and continue running the car normally, rather than the other way around, even if that might be smarter regarding scoring..?

I mean that with [bafög] there is a discount for a quick repayment. You should check that sometime.

A tip regarding your 0% installment loans: pay them off as soon as you can. You don’t have to pay any prepayment penalty and then they’re gone.

Now is a good time to take tax refunds and pay them off, take bonus payments/commissions and do the same.
That way you’ll have a clear overview much faster.

It was the same for us, and we took every little "money shower" to pay things off.

I mean that with BAföG there is a discount for quick repayment. You should check that out

Yes, that can really be worthwhile. If you can't repay both, meaning consumer loans and BAföG, but only one of them, I would rather let the consumer loans run, save up, and then repay BAföG in one lump sum.