How high are your living expenses after building a house?

Hello dear community

We have now been proud homeowners for a year and I need some help regarding our family's living expenses.

We have the following average expenses:
- Food / drugstore: €600
- Utilities (electricity/heating/water): €250
- Repayment of building financing: €1300
- Home insurance (household contents + building insurance): €50
- Private insurance (private pension, occupational disability, life insurance, accident insurance, liability, legal protection): €365
- Car: €200 (incl. €50 monthly reserve)
- Mobile / internet / Netflix / Amazon: €100
- Savings: €270
- Miscellaneous (restaurant, cinema, hairdresser, etc.): €200
- Clothing: €100
- Purchases (house/child): €150.00
TOTAL: €3585

We are a 3-person household (single-family house with 150 sqm) with a toddler (2 years old) and I personally find this very high, but I don’t know where we could significantly save. We have no expensive hobbies or anything else.

What are your monthly expenses?
I am grateful for any comparison
Best regards
Basti

Well, you have to deduct the [Baufinanzierung] and the [Sparrate] from the expenses to make it comparable. Then you are left with 2,015€. I personally don't find that really too high for a household of three.

Comparability is always difficult.

But when I look at your numbers and the question is where others might spend less, then in our case it would be the topic of private insurance. For us that's maybe €50, not €365.
Whether there is a right or wrong here has been debated many times already.

Your ancillary costs are quite high if only the three mentioned items are included. We spend about €80 less, despite a lot of technical stuff and one more person, on 200 sqm.

€600 for food is okay for 3 people if it includes a lot of organic or meat, etc. We also buy "well," but do not eat out on workdays. That also makes a difference. I have colleagues who buy sandwiches at the bakery in the morning and eat at the canteen/snack bar at midday, there €10-15 per workday get lost.

All in all, I don’t find your numbers scandalous. Did you expect something different?

Your additional costs are quite high if only the three mentioned items are included. We spend about 80€ less, despite having a lot of technical equipment and one more person, over 200 sqm.

The additional costs also include property tax. We pay 80€ for electricity, 60€ for heating, 60€ for water (including additional costs), and 30€ for property tax.

Regarding the insurances, I have to say that we both have a private pension insurance, which alone is 160€ per month. In addition, there is risk life insurance with 25€, occupational disability insurance with 50€, legal protection with 17€, liability insurance 5€, accident insurance with 26€, and insurance for our daughter 50€ (capital-forming accident insurance).

I also do not find any item in your expenses that is high or represents a luxury lifestyle. Rather very careful due to the savings rates (270 €, 50 € for the car and the 160 € pension insurance). We spend just under 400 € on groceries including household items. Maybe you could save 50 € there, but is it worth it...?

I find you are very frugal. We need significantly more to live, just food alone is easily over 1000 euros a month for us. Cars also cost us over 1000 euros a month.

Only insurance is less for us. You also save a lot. And [Nebenkosten].