Special repayment, saving or consumption?

Now I have to ask a stupid question: How do you manage with children? How can you pay off so much without significantly restricting yourselves?
For us, it's already €500 per month for daycare/food, then (a special case for us) maintenance payments of almost €600. Then the kids' sports gear is also €100 monthly. Then a swimming course with €90 here, holiday care with €260 there, etc. Birthdays and Christmas are not included yet.
And we buy everything second-hand that we can.
What’s left basically flows immediately into the house and garden.
We currently don’t save anything. No special repayments after 6 years (but we were honest with ourselves and planned for nothing).

We don’t earn badly now. We have a household net income of €5k. Our rate for all loans is €2000.

€100 sports gear every month? That’s crazy even for us.

Otherwise, for us, the building financing started with one child; back then, you already knew the expenses for children. With two children, of course, it’s double :) However, incomes have developed disproportionately. I alone earn about 65% more than at the start. You have to be brave and, if necessary, consider changing jobs (want to).

But but, the child will behave ... ;-) Well anyway, everyone has to make certain experiences themselves.

The behaving part can even work somewhat. Until they turn about two and a half and start developing their own opinion about whether they feel like going somewhere by car with you right now. Then all the "parenting" articles in your head burst, while you find yourself in the situation where you pull over to the roadside so that the freaking out child who has kicked and wriggled out of the car seat doesn't strangle themselves with the seatbelt. :rolleyes:

Edit: My husband just reminded me: What you also can't prevent is that some children get car sick. We once drove 550 km and our son - no joke - started crying very miserably during the LAST kilometer before the destination. And while you turn around to ask "What's wrong, my darling" - you can imagine the rest.

We could easily be done with the financing in less than 10 years. I just wonder why?!
We have about €5200 net household income per month and a rate of €788. Theoretically, we could save a lot every year and make extra repayments. But I prefer to enjoy the luxury of having so much money available. We spend at least €1500 every month on consumption that is not necessarily essential. Just recently been to the furniture store again and spent €6000 on a bedroom and some cabinets for the utility room. Was that necessary? No. But it's fun.
By now, thanks to my son, I am also a big LEGO fan again. For about 2 years now, an average of €300 goes to LEGO every month. Sure, I could also put the money into the repayment. But that is not as much fun.
If we want something, we just buy it. For me, that is a huge luxury.
I still have about 27 years until retirement and about €190,000 remaining debt.
In return, I have a house that, including the land, additional construction costs, and all the trimmings, cost €300,000 six years ago and is now worth about €500,000. Also, about €60,000 in reserves are still in the account. So why rush it?

We could easily be done with the financing in less than 10 years. I just wonder why?!
We have about €5200 net household income per month and a payment of €788. Theoretically, we could save a lot every year and make special repayments. But I prefer to enjoy the luxury of having so much money available. We spend at least €1500 a month on consumption that is not necessarily essential. Just recently, we were at the furniture store again and spent €6000 on a bedroom and a few cabinets for the utility room. Did that have to be? No. But it’s fun.
By now, thanks to my son, I’m a big LEGO fan again. For about 2 years, on average €300 a month goes to LEGO. Sure, I could put that money into repayment too. But that’s not as much fun.
If we want something, we just buy it. For me, that’s a huge luxury.
I have about 27 years until retirement and about €190,000 remaining debt.
In return, I have a house which, including the land, incidental building costs, and all that, cost €300,000 six years ago and is now worth about €500,000. Also, there are about €60,000 in reserves in the account. So why rush?

€500,000 value today? Where do you live? You can’t get a house for that anymore…

500,000 value today? Where do you live, you can’t get a house for that anymore…

It depends... Just yesterday I had the following conversation with a friend who lives in another part of Germany and to whom we showed pictures of our soon-to-be house... He: let me guess, that costs at least half a million We: no, not even half He: what?? That can’t be The prices simply vary significantly depending on the area, and I would say that sometimes it’s not even really justified, but rural areas, for example, are often generally avoided because of prejudices. Good for the prices there.

Very rural in the Rhineland. Prices are still a bit like this here :P Maybe I would get more for it, who knows.