How does everyone afford a house?

, I don't think conscious wastefulness is being talked about. Just as little will the OP want to call others pathetic. It is the basic attitude towards money: either I realize that €100 is too much to squander (without a child) or not. Maybe there are some here who subordinate themselves to the house and the loan costs, but certainly not all: for example, I have always had a good relationship with money, and the house is the result. If I had looked for a rental apartment, my consumption behavior would not change.

But one or the other well-organized away trip is still possible, right?

Absolutely Next Friday we're going to Bochum!

The discussion about the potential savings is highly subjective and therefore hardly conclusive - but very revealing when it comes to priorities. Everyone has to know and decide for themselves what is (more) valuable to them in life and what ultimately makes them happy, whereby I personally can fully understand Bauexperte's argument that even with a house there must be room and time left for life.

Regarding the situation of the TE, I also think it should be noted that the leap from double housekeeping without equity directly into joint property ownership is maximal. The 4,000€ net income looks sufficient at first glance, but double housekeeping simply consumes money, no matter how you look at it. If, in addition, there is the - completely legitimate - claim to some leisure activities/luxury/vacation, at 4,000€ net there actually is a lack of capital for building/saving.

The first step to cost reduction would be a shared rental or even condominium to unlock existing savings potential. You can still build/buy a house at 40; by then, you will also know whether you actually want to use the accumulated capital for your own house or something else.

I am rather surprised by the often existing sense of entitlement that one must be settled in one’s own place at the latest 5 years after studying and preferably before 30. Many people put themselves under pressure just because neighbors/acquaintances/friends do the same. I find that partly really concerning.

Best regards
Dirk Grafe

Good morning,

some of you are describing exactly what I advise my clients NOT to do. Namely, subordinating the ownership of a house to the rest of your life!

Exactly for that reason, we renovated a house instead of building one. The renovation was expensive, but building a house would have been even more costly. We could have afforded to build a house as well. But we didn’t want to. Because we didn’t want to restrict ourselves. I don’t want to work for the property. I want to live in it without constantly having to worry and turn every euro twice. If everything goes smoothly, we will have almost completely paid off the renovation in 15 years.

We only built on the condition that we would not have to restrict ourselves. However, we have never wasted money before either, but always questioned expenses, so that after my wife's studies, despite repaying BAföG, the wedding, etc., we were able to build up equity quite quickly.

I also don't quite understand the hype about mobile phones. I have a mobile phone where I can be reached, and with which I can reach someone if necessary, but if I want to have long conversations, I do that at home from the landline, just as I check my emails on the laptop or surf the internet at home.
I don't have to swipe around on a small screen all day, post every place I am at and every meal I prepare on Fb, etc.
I think I'm already addicted enough to the internet, I don't have to put myself through that too.

And for business purposes, I have a BB, where I can check emails and the calendar, but even there I don't need the internet.

Of course, you have to be able to live besides just having the house and not live only for the house. But everyone understands something different by that.
He still wants to live, my colleague tells me (significantly higher household income, but still overdrawn by mid-month), when I tell him that you sometimes have to save a bit for a house. For me, being able to live means spending the weekend with my family without spending much. He only considers it living if he can blow 200 euros per weekend in clubs. That’s possible, but then you also have to live with the fact that it might not be enough for a house.
I think for most people who build a house even with relatively little income or at a younger age, it was important to have a house since youth. So they behaved accordingly from the beginning. Others simply always wanted to travel a lot, always drive the newest car, or party as much as possible. That naturally leads to different behavior. It’s not about wastefulness (if anything, a new single-family house is probably the biggest waste), but simply about the fact that most people cannot have everything.