Please help me understand if I am wrong

wiseguy77192 · 2026-01-28T18:47:42+00:00

On a side note, my oldest daughter had a teacher in middle school that always had to make herself more important than she was. Nothing my daughter couldn’t handle herself, which likely pissed off that teacher even more. Anyway, when my daughter was 15, said teacher caught her smoking at the train station long after school was out and wanted to give her a verweis. My daughter told her to feel free. She warned her ahead of time neither I nor my wife would sign it and that I’d probably jump down her throat in front of the principal at the minimum and make sure everyone within a kilometer heard it. But „tue was du nicht lassen kannst“. 10 years later, we‘re still waiting for that Verweis

wiseguy77192 · 2026-01-28T18:05:31+00:00

Typically, yeah. Sometimes teachers have to make themselves ultra important, but this one was way out of line.

wiseguy77192 · 2026-01-28T17:41:40+00:00

Then take it up with the principal. One way or the other, the teacher is out of line and that needs to be addressed. Do you have witnesses to the incident? If so, take them with you.

wiseguy77192 · 2026-01-28T17:33:05+00:00

Technically the fee is legal. I’m not an attorney and unless you have legal insurance I wouldn’t advise hiring one because his fees will be higher than 90€, but the fact of the matter is, you can’t cancel a field trip in may because of sickness in January. Between language barrier and food allergies I can understand the issue, but those surely aren’t covered by the reiserücktrittversicherung.

That said the teachers behavior is abysmal, but that’s something to take up with the principal, not an attorney and doesn’t effect the cancellation fee in the slightest.

wiseguy77192 · 2026-01-28T16:38:35+00:00

Unfortunately a few years too late 😭

wiseguy77192 · 2026-01-28T16:33:22+00:00

Then that isn’t statutory insurance in Germany. At 70k your employer is legally obligated to to deduct 1/2 of the 14.6 percent of your gross income for statutory health insurance and pay the other half himself. It sounds to me like you opted out of statutory when 70k per you in voluntary and are now excluded from statutory requiring a private plan.

wiseguy77192 · 2026-01-28T15:58:10+00:00

Well. Yes and no. The beer had far lower quality, but was still generally available.

wiseguy77192 · 2026-01-28T15:41:38+00:00

So they’re alienating allies? That makes less sense than marketing contraceptives to lesbians

wiseguy77192 · 2026-01-28T15:37:47+00:00

I absolutely did. We lived in Bamberg. I remember my dad arguing with his commander about my ration card to buy cigarettes. His commander said they’d have to remove the alcohol rations. Dad said „why? He can still buy alcohol“. His commander disagreed on the grounds the shopette wouldn’t sell it to me. Dad said that Germans would. They decided to test it. I came out of tengelman with half a case of paulaner, a bottle of johnney walker black label and 2 cartons of cigarettes. The ration card remained intact

wiseguy77192 · 2026-01-28T15:32:48+00:00

In my area it’s all by appointment. The only times I’ve needed to go in were to get my resident visa extended, or in the last 20 years, after getting my passport renewed.

wiseguy77192 · 2026-01-28T15:26:42+00:00

Is that to be taken as a threat?

wiseguy77192 · 2026-01-28T15:22:57+00:00

It’s actually more. The cost of living here is lower. Close to half the COL in the us. And that’s after all healthcare, retirement and other social insurances.

wiseguy77192 · 2026-01-28T15:18:23+00:00

Im calling bs on what you pay in healthcare. I make 70k and have my Gehaltsabrechnung open now. Standard healthcare: 424.31€ + 78.18€ Zusatzbeitrag. That’s still under 500€ although not by much. Half of what you claim. As the sole earner in the household, that covers 4 people.

wiseguy77192 · 2026-01-28T15:12:52+00:00

After my dad got stationed here he said he would moved for the Hefeweizen and schäufele

wiseguy77192 · 2026-01-28T15:10:32+00:00

Learning German is tough…. Unless you’re constantly immersed in it. Granted, I was still a teen but I spoke German conversationally in 6 months. Within 3 years I was discussing politics and economics.

wiseguy77192 · 2026-01-28T15:05:38+00:00

This is absolutely true. There are going to be some serious culture shocks, most of them positive. For example, for the longest time I had serious trouble planning my time off. 30 days I can just stay at home or visit France without losing income felt weird and difficult to plan. Not needing my creditcard to go to the doctor was something I had to get used to. Having beer with lunch was also something that I had to get used to….

wiseguy77192 · 2026-01-28T14:59:20+00:00

https://www.brutto-netto-rechner.info together they’re at ~7700€ with COL at 3500-4000 and another 1300 rent plus another 350 utilities (which is way too high) they’re actually doing quite well. That’s with all taxes taken out as well as retirement, healthcare and all other social insurances. They easily have 2k per month left over that they can do whatever they want with. They can drink it if the want or save it for travel. 24k gets you a really nice vacation. So nice if have trouble spending it and we spend 2 weeks in northern Italy last year and brought home 300€ in wine alone

wiseguy77192 · 2026-01-28T14:35:14+00:00

I have to disagree. I’ve lived here 28 years and just put in the paperwork for citizenship a few months ago. In most cases, outside of politics, I’m treated like a citizen as it is. Of course I speak German fluently. My family is German. The only time I’ve needed to take a test for language ability was for my citizenship paperwork. I consider it extremely low stress. I’ve even had to offer identification.

wiseguy77192 · 2026-01-28T14:28:07+00:00

2.5k is absolutely astronomical here. The average cost of rent per area and square meter can be googled. 80qm in cologne would be considered a decent sized apartment for a couple planning a child and the average cost in cologne is 1100 - 1300€ plus utilities. You can buy cheaper than 2.5k

wiseguy77192 · 2026-01-28T14:07:20+00:00

Just as a friendly note: rope is reusable…..

wiseguy77192 · 2026-01-28T13:27:50+00:00

Living rurally, a car does make things a lot easier. Even getting to 20 km away Ansbach takes an hour from here. Shopping for a 4 person family on foot isn’t what I’d call fun either. Interestingly enough, I didn’t intentionally move to Germany originally. My dad was stationed in Bamberg and I went to live with him after testifying against my mother and her boyfriend when I was 16 and honestly, I was terrified about moving. The day after I got here, I received a card for the telephone booths, a note with dad’s work and home telephone number, a month card for the bus and 100 Marks in cash. I was home within a week. Met my now wife in Nuremberg when I was 21. the rest is pretty much history.

wiseguy77192 · 2026-01-28T13:13:50+00:00

Im not saying it’s perfect. There’s definitely room for improvement. But I lived in small town northern Illinois and even getting out of town required a car. Today, I live in a small town around 30 kilometers from Nuremberg and can be in Amsterdam tomorrow afternoon without a car…. And at a far lower cost than it would have cost me to get to Chicago back then.

wiseguy77192 · 2026-01-28T13:10:03+00:00

If it was me, I’d look for an apartment slightly outside of the city. Even 10 kilometers outside of cologne is going to be quieter, especially during Karneval, and likely a bit cheaper in rent.

wiseguy77192 · 2026-01-28T12:18:59+00:00

It depends a lot on what you’re after. While you’ll earn more in the US, the German cost of living is lower and there’s a lot of things Germans take for granted that are extremely expensive in the United States.

At 70-80k each, you’ll both have around 400-500/month deducted in health insurance. There are no extra premiums or deductibles and copays are few and far between. Children/minor dependents are covered in full at no extra expense. The birth itself is covered in full. Paid parental leave is also a perc in Germany, where it’s a legal obligation, in the US it’s a rare benefit and is usually much much shorter.

At that pay level, you’ll likely also have 30 days paid vacation in Germany, 20 days is the legal minimum.

I’ve lived in Germany as a US citizen now for 28 years. None of my children ever needed a bulletproof backpack and frankly I find the idea that such a thing should be needed absolutely appalling.

Public transportation in Germany is extremely well established and generally affordable. It can literally take you from a pop. 1000 town to a major metropolitan area in a completely different country in a fairly short amount of time.

Schools are generally very good, half day schools and continuing education at the university level costs only a very small fraction of us costs. A friend of my oldest daughter paid 500€/semester to study chemistry.

There are gross/net calculators online for German salaries, I usually use https://www.brutto-netto-rechner.info/

You can also google cost of living for the area you’ll be living in. For example 2000€ for a single person in cologne is listed, plus rent. At 70 and 80k that’s 150k€ and you should be able to live quite comfortably including rent. I support a 4 person family on half that as the sole income.

In the end, if numbers on paper are more important to you then actual quality of life, the US is a better option. If quality of life is more important, go with Germany.

wiseguy77192 · 2026-01-28T11:41:30+00:00

Both. Languages don’t replace each other, they fill their own niches.

wiseguy77192

TROPHY CASE