How much repayment is advisable for how much net income?

According to the often expressed opinion about income here, we should not be living in the old house nor building a new one. Before construction started, we saved the planned rate of 1000 euros for one year to see if it would work. And it works, despite everything you can possibly collect in unplanned nasty expenses and the fact that since mid-2016 I have not been able to work for health reasons. We have two boys and yes, we live frugally, we pass this on to the children as well, but there is always money for their hobbies and also for their wishes. And if it ever really got tight, then we simply save on ourselves.

I don't think you can really compare the repayment rate properly; it always depends on personal circumstances, consumption, etc. For example, we have a relatively big problem with the topic of credit, meaning we don't like it and want to get rid of that stupid thing as quickly as possible. Therefore, we restrict ourselves more than we absolutely have to in order to repay the loan a bit faster. My wife has been on parental leave for 2 years and currently earns 500€ net, we do not consider child benefits, and I come to an average of 5500€ net per month with everything included (bonus, etc.). Since we put everything except a small reserve for unforeseeable repairs or something like that into the house, we are paying a monthly rate of over 4000€, including special repayments, or just under 70%. Since we are rather security-conscious and it is not certain that my income will always remain that high, we prefer to forgo some comforts and reduce the debt. Slowly but surely the end is already in sight in a few years, and we manage quite well. We therefore do not live in poverty, but we do take vacations by car in Europe staying in guesthouses instead of, for example, Florida.

With 2000 euros available and a house and a car, is there still money left for a vacation? You seem to live very cost-consciously.

6000€ net income and 4000€ of that goes towards the installment Oo? In my eyes, that’s already close to self-mutilation. Sure, a small family CAN live on 2000€ a month, but the restrictions would probably be considerable. If you deduct fixed costs like operating costs / car / insurance / reserves etc., there’s hardly anything left, every cent must be turned over. Vacation at most would be in your own garden (which doesn’t have to be bad). Why should anyone restrict themselves so massively without any real need given the current interest rates? You live in the here and now after all. Especially when you have small children, that’s a time to enjoy and not to self-torture. No offense, I just found the post so incredibly strange that I had to share it.

I had understood it more like there are very high special repayments and therefore the roughly 4,000€ is not a fixed total monthly rate, but the result of the monthly rate + 1/12 special repayment.

Then it is still ambitious to save away so much money; but if there are extra expenses, the special repayment is just smaller...

Therefore, we are restricting ourselves more than we absolutely have to, in order to repay the loan a bit faster.

€6000 net and €4000 of that goes into the installment Oo?
In my eyes, that’s already close to self-mutilation.
.....
One does live in the here and now. Especially when you have small children, that’s a time to enjoy and not to self-torment.
No offense, I just found the post so incredibly strange that I had to share it

I also find the behavior strange.
I am a security-minded person myself, but I live today and now and enjoy that small installments make life with a house carefree. We have also made special repayments three times now, so that the loan quickly decreases. But now it should be enough.
I am almost annoyed, because construction financing is simply the cheapest thing the bank has to offer. What I couldn’t afford now, I would have to take out as an expensive consumer loan if that were the case.
The key is to find the golden mean for your situation – what good is it to me if in 10 years I no longer have an installment but had to scrimp and save for 10 years.
My husband always says: who knows if we’ll even live to see that. So live now: with a house, with holidays, with good things. For old age, there still has to be enough. And there will be (at least for us it also works with a small installment that will forever remain).