Private retirement provision and free saving alongside financing?

I think you are misunderstanding me. I am not saying that one should use every means to pay off the house as quickly as possible; everyone should actually do it as they like. Some people can no longer sleep peacefully at the thought of 15 years of the "Sword of Damocles," while others spread the term over 35 years. I just wanted to point out that the "saving" mentioned here by bieber0815, along with the installment and "living," economically actually never makes sense, since the return achieved in the process would ultimately have to beat the loan interest plus inflation. That may still work for some old building society savers at the moment (as long as the bank does not terminate immediately), but with practically all other (reasonably safe!) investment forms, you are paying for the attempt. A self-employed person must, of course, create a counterpart for unemployment insurance, analogous to the retirement provision already addressed by Sylvia; that is, either pay in voluntarily there or set aside enough money for 1-2 years. However, this is also a completely different approach than for the regular employee or even civil servant, who can actually save themselves this point.

I just wanted to point out that the "saving" mentioned here by bieber0815 along with installments and "life" never really makes economic sense, since the yield achieved in the process would have to exceed the loan interest plus inflation in the end.

That is correct. The only advantage I see is in a broader diversification of assets. You pay a price for that.

You can "protect" yourself against insolvency - that is the advantage of a GmbH. Liability is limited to the contributed capital. Private funds are not involved unless one has delayed the insolvency or acted with gross negligence in some other way.

You can "insure" yourself against insolvency - that's the advantage of a GmbH. Liability is limited to the contributed capital. Private assets are not involved unless you have delayed the insolvency or acted with gross negligence in some other way.

Try to get a loan in a GmbH without including your private assets in the liability.
You can forget about that.

True. But that’s the only argument (insolvency protection). So why don’t I do it? In case of insolvency, it will come down to Hartz 4. In retirement, of course, too. That means more than 1000 EUR per month from the state. So the retirement security would have to be at least that amount... actually even a bit higher. As long as that’s not the case, in my opinion, retirement provision makes no sense. To achieve 1000 EUR pension, I would currently have to save about 1200 EUR per month. But 1000 EUR pension won’t be enough to keep the house (even if it’s paid off).

My conclusion is: In case of insolvency (H4), it doesn’t matter whether I have retirement security or not. Assets and house are gone. Basic state security is there anyway (quite selfish, I know).

Furthermore, there is currently still limited deductibility of Rürup. It only becomes really interesting from 2020. Then you can also relatively quickly pay in a lot. 2x 20,000 EUR per year.

Regards, Steffen

...well, I don’t know, but I don’t believe that one will be even remotely able to get by on the statutory pension in old age. Even if no rent has to be paid...utilities, food, etc. all continue. Personally, I certainly don’t want to have to scrutinize every euro or whatever the currency will be called then, twice... I want to still "live" well then, not just vegetate....
Regarding Hartz 4: we can count ourselves lucky in Germany that there is this kind of social security... who knows for how much longer? The state treasury isn’t getting any fuller... and by that I don’t mean the expenses for refugees... there is waste elsewhere.

As for me, I have my property AND private and occupational retirement provision including risk coverage AND liquidity AND various securities...

all broadly diversified.... betting on just one horse is simply too risky for me personally.

Try to get a loan in a GmbH without putting your private assets at risk.
You can forget about that.

That's true, which is why it's best to have your loan arranged beforehand.