ᐅ How much are your living expenses after building your house?

Hello dear community,

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

These are our average monthly costs:
- Food / personal care: 600€
- Utilities (electricity/heating/water): 250€
- Mortgage repayment: 1300€
- Home insurance (contents + building): 50€
- Private insurance (private pension, disability, term life, accident, liability, legal protection): 365€
- Car: 200€ (including 50€ monthly savings)
- Mobile / internet / streaming services: 100€
- Savings: 270€
- Miscellaneous (restaurants, cinema, hairdresser, etc.): 200€
- Clothing: 100€
- Purchases (home/child): 150€
TOTAL: 3585€

We are a household of three (single-family home with 150 m² (1600 sq ft)) with a toddler (2 years old), and I personally consider this amount quite high, but I don’t know where we could significantly cut costs. We don’t have expensive hobbies or other major expenses.

What are your typical monthly expenses?
I’d appreciate any comparison.
Best regards,
Basti

Well, you have to deduct the construction loan payments and the savings rate from the expenses to make a fair comparison.
Then you’re left with €2,015 (approx. $2,230). Personally, I don’t find that really too high for a household of three people.

Comparing these things is always difficult.

But looking at your numbers and considering where others might spend less, in our case it would be private insurance. That costs us around 50€ (about $55), not 365€ (about $400). Whether there is a right or wrong here has been debated many times before.

Your additional costs are quite high if only the three mentioned items are included. We spend about 80€ (around $85) less, despite having more technical equipment and one more person, on 200 square meters (about 2150 square feet).

600€ (about $655) for food is reasonable for three people, especially if much of it is organic or includes meat. We also buy good-quality groceries but usually don’t eat out on workdays, which makes a difference. I have colleagues who buy sandwiches from the bakery in the morning and eat at the canteen or snack bar for lunch, spending around 10-15€ (about $11-16) per workday.

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

guckuck2 schrieb:


Your additional costs seem quite high if they only include the three items mentioned. We spend about €80 (about $88) less, despite having more technical equipment and one more person, on 200 sqm (2,153 sq ft).

The additional costs also include property tax. We pay €80 (about $88) for electricity, €60 (about $66) for heating, €60 (about $66) for water (including additional charges), and €30 (about $33) for property tax.

Regarding insurance, I should mention that we both have private pension plans, which alone cost €160 (about $176) per month. On top of that, we have risk life insurance for €25 (about $28), occupational disability insurance for €50 (about $55), legal protection insurance for €17 (about $19), liability insurance for €5 (about $6), accident insurance for €26 (about $29), and insurance for our daughter costing €50 (about $55) (capital-building accident insurance).

I don’t see any item in your expenses that is particularly high or represents a luxury lifestyle.
Rather, it seems very deliberate given the savings rates (270 €, 50 € for the car, and 160 € for the pension insurance).
We spend just under 400 € on groceries, including household items. Maybe you could save 50 € there, but is it really worth it...?

I think you are very economical. We need significantly more to live on; just food alone easily costs us over 1000 euros per month. Cars also amount to more than 1000 euros per month for us.

We pay less for insurance, though. You also save a lot, as well as on additional costs.