How long have you been saving equity for your house?

From these observations, I conclude that it currently depends more on the personal situation. How much do I really want a house and how painful would it be to wait a few more years? All in all, I would probably start as soon as possible and not wait.

We have also come to this conclusion for ourselves, despite low equity. In the end, the household budget has to work, and despite the burden of financing, a subjectively happy life must be possible. As long as the interest rates are very good even with little/no equity, it is definitely worth recalculating, and the distance to retirement is greater the earlier you start.

I am glad that we are back in the constructive area. Since I was also one of the OT drivers, I would like to apologize for that.

We have come to the same conclusion ourselves, despite having little equity. In the end, the household budget must add up and despite the burden of financing, a subjectively happy life must be possible. As long as the interest rates are very good even with little or no equity, it is definitely worth recalculating and the distance to retirement is greater, the sooner you start.

I am glad that we are back in the constructive area. Since I was also one of the OT drivers, I want to apologize for that.

That’s exactly how I see it too!

I also believe that many people worry "unnecessarily" and push the house-building topic "unnecessarily" far back just because maybe they don’t have 60-100k equity.

Also due to the post by , I think there is only one thing that counts: Can I afford the monthly installment (which allows me to pay off the house, for example, by retirement) – also in the future with children – and can I still live reasonably well despite everything and afford what is important to me?

If yes, and if there really is a desire to build a single-family house, buy something, or whatever, I would never postpone it due to little equity and the “fear” of debt. Purely financially and economically, it at least makes no sense!

Is such a life even worth living?

If it weren’t, we would have to experience billions of suicides today from people with worthless lives o_O. however lists many beautiful things in his/her life. Once you have found a “different” meaning in life for yourself, the boundaries of the “meaningless” shift very quickly. I wouldn’t even know what to do with all the things I see lying around elsewhere as “standard.” For me, new cars were always stressful because of worry about scratches, etc. With my very old Passat, I live completely stress-free, but I only learned such things for myself after living somewhere else for a long time.

We can gladly discuss the civil servants/teachers topic via private message or move it to another discussion area.

We have already had that discussion several times and the outcome is always the same: Everyone considers themselves the high performer and busts several asses. You shouldn’t feel attacked by this; envy and complaining are widespread phenomena even on the internet. I know both civil service and self-employment and wouldn’t know which one is better. Those who always see the easy life elsewhere are often not entirely satisfied with their own life, but at the same time not brave enough to finally change it toward the “easy” one! In working life I was often engaged but sometimes pretty lazy and the pay never changed. I do not see so many busted asses during daily shopping; loud drumming is also part of the craft here, and if you actually got something “for free,” that would be great and not forbidden; then everyone could gladly do the same.

So I am an office jockey and a manager. I think I am paid fairly considering how much revenue depends on my work. Do I bust my ass? Well, at times definitely, there are also nights worked through with presentations and workshops first thing the next morning. But nowhere near as much as before – but that’s what brought me to where I am today.
But I also still remember my civil service, where I cared for elderly people at home. This included shopping and cleaning as well as physical (intimate) care (though no full washing of comatose persons).
When I now think about the fact that there are people who really do everything that needs to be done with humans, the responsibility and physical as well as mental strain plus shift work and weekend and holiday work – all that for what, 1500-2000 net (probably already an overestimate)?
Even if I then had to work on average 10-20 hours less per week, I would not do it for the same salary (meaning my current one). They would have to pay me double or even triple.
And sure, when I see others and what they earn, I also think – why? Or rather: why not me?
But that doesn’t mean I begrudge it to them (there are only very few), I would like to have more too.
At that moment, of course, I ignore that others are paid even more unfairly.

I find the bashing of civil servants mostly a bit superficial. On the one hand, I know a few who are definitely not just drinking coffee and taking breaks, and on the other hand, there is a reason for the relatively comfortable security. Yes, they have many advantages, but they are not free. One must not forget they have an employer who has extensive powers regarding the deployment of his civil servants. And often they are in a position where bribery has even greater societal implications than in any employed job in the private sector. The advantages are supposed to prevent that. Whether this works so well, especially at higher levels, can certainly be doubted in view of recent findings. Maybe law enforcement and punishment should be even more uncompromising here.

I never really saved specifically for the house. Although I always had the dream of owning a house, I never set a fixed monthly savings rate for it. Except for the building savings contracts [Bausparverträge] into which I paid over the last 10 years, which was rather a small part. Otherwise, since the end of my training, whatever was left at the end of the month was put aside. Of course, money was also spent in between, for example on a car or motorcycle. After 10 years, I had saved about 120k, of which approximately 112k was invested in the house purchase last year.

We also call ourselves ordinary people, with about 80k € net p.a.

Alright. It is always amusing to read something like this here (and elsewhere). In which country do you live that you can call yourselves ordinary people with 80k p.a.? It can't be Germany, but Switzerland certainly. Is it actually a quirk among high earners that they do not see (or want to see) themselves as such? I am really shocked by how many (even educated) people are unable to read and understand simple statistics, and no, it is not relevant that the cleaning staff at the Weissach development center of Porsche AG earns an hourly wage of 37.5€ (warning, exaggeration) or that your own neighbors are all millionaires. That is NOT representative.

Long story short: No, statistically speaking you are definitely not ordinary people!