Many expenses are superfluous or could at least be cheaper. Germans are particularly fond of spending money on six things.
Some expenses can hardly influence consumers, such as the high cost of rental apartments in metropolitan areas. Other cost factors, on the other hand, are largely in our own hands. The portal Finanztip has taken a close look at consumer costs that you can influence yourself. For this purpose, the portal analysed consumer goods data from eurostat from 2019. The astonishing thing is that these expenses cost us around 4,600 euros per person per year. So if you cut back in the right place, you can save a lot of money. According to the evaluation, the six largest cost factors that can be influenced include:
Due to expensive habits, the money quickly becomes less. © K. Schmitt/Imago
We have selected the three most interesting savings tips for you:
No unnecessary expenditure on health
First place among the most expensive habits goes to health: Germans spent around 1,100 euros per year in 2019, according to the analysis by Finanztip. Doesn't sound bad in itself, after all, health is our most valuable asset. But unfortunately, we rarely invest the money sensibly for this - for example, for fitness equipment, which we then use far too rarely and let gather dust in the fitness corner set up especially for this purpose. Not to mention the membership fee for the gym, which we rarely or not at all visit after a few euphoric weeks – but thanks to the subscription contract, we continue to pay. It makes more sense for the wallet to attend health courses that are subsidized by the health insurance company. Or you can look for a gym that is easy for you to reach instead of just paying attention to the price and not going at all in the end because it is too cumbersome to reach.
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Set limits on clothing and shoes
Germans spend around 900 euros per capita annually on clothes, sneakers and the like. It is not for nothing that this cost item makes it to third place in the ranking. In order to save money here, the portal advises to set a limit when shopping. However, not in terms of money, but in terms of the number of purchases – for example, a maximum of five pieces for the summer. This kind of saving should be easier for our brains. You can then resell old clothes either at flea markets or on the Internet or donate them.
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Individual booking instead of package tours
In 2019, the previous pandemic year, Germans spent an average of around 450 euros per capita on package holidays. Package tours, in which flight and accommodation, rental cars and, if necessary, events are booked together, are usually less stressful, but also have a decisive disadvantage: they are often more expensive than individual bookings. In order to save money, Finanztip recommends, for example, to use flight search engines that also display the airfares of the individual airlines, without the expensive surcharge of the flight portals. If you still don't want to miss out on a package tour, you should take advantage of early bird discounts, which are available from autumn to around February / March.