Marisa Schiffer, 22, spends three times as much money on her animals as she does on herself. She has calculated just under 350 euros as the monthly cost for a dog and two donkeys.
She reckons 100 euros for groceries.
And with that, your trainee salary is almost gone.
There is no money left for an apartment or a room in a shared apartment.
Schiffer is training to be a chimney sweep in Spremberg near Cottbus - in 2020 that was the apprenticeship with the lowest collectively agreed wages in Germany.
With an average gross earnings of 599 euros per month, chimney sweeps landed at the bottom of the overview table of the Federal Institute for Vocational Training.
That didn't stop Schiffer: “I got the figures when I applied for the job.
But I think the salary shouldn't be the deciding factor in choosing a job, ”she says.
Sunrise on the roof
The 22-year-old saves where she can, including on disability insurance.
She is well aware that this is risky in a job that sometimes involves balancing unsecured on the roof of a house.
"Especially when the wind is blowing quickly or it starts to rain and you hold a broom in your hand, you quickly feel lost."
Depending on the job, Schiffer has to weigh several kilograms of equipment on the roof.
Nevertheless, she does not want to miss this part of her job: The view from up there is what makes her job so attractive for her.
"When I stand on the roof at seven in the morning and see the sunrise, I always think: Wow, what a nice job I have."
How often she can climb roofs, what other tasks her job entails, why a championship title is not appealing to her and how she got two donkeys as pets - this is what Marisa Schiffer talks about in the podcast.
