As of: February 15, 2024, 4:23 p.m
By: Nico Reiter
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A couple lost their savings through stock trading.
They cope with everyday life with pensions and mini-jobs - they forego basic security.
Munich – Many people are afraid of poverty in old age.
Pensions are often not enough to maintain the lifestyle you led when you were younger.
A retired couple wanted to protect themselves by saving resources.
But they lost a large part of their savings in stock trading.
Nevertheless, they refuse to rely on social assistance such as basic security - unthinkable for them.
Retired couple loses savings through stock trading - they don't want basic security
The couple Rolf and Ursula Teuscher earned well in their working lives, as can be seen from their interview with
focus.de
.
They owned a busy butcher shop.
When the husband had to take early retirement at the age of 56 for health reasons, the business was given up and sold.
The wife also inherited the parental home.
“Together with the money we invested in the bank, we would have had a nice living in old age,” said the 80-year-old.
The retired couple does not want to become dependent on basic security (symbolic image) © Winfried Rothermel/Imago
In 2010, the proceeds were to be invested in stocks for the parents' house.
A contract was drawn up by a bank advisor whom the two knew personally.
A year later, while on vacation, the couple heard about the stock market crash and tried to contact the bank.
At the end of the year came the shocking reckoning.
The couple had lost 130,000 euros.
Pension and mini-jobs to finance living expenses
The Teuscher couple originally wanted to help finance the building of a house for their children.
For a while they kept the loss a secret from the children so as not to burden them.
But at some point it stopped working, the man reports.
The daughter and son-in-law now let the two of them live with them rent-free.
The couple receives around 1,300 euros per month from their pension.
Of this, 400 euros are lost for electricity and gas.
“It wouldn’t work without the mini-jobs that my wife and I do,” says the early retiree.
Entitlement to basic security in pension?
The pensioner does not want to get help from friends or social benefits: “Alms from the state?
That would be undignified for us!” He found out about basic security, but according to him, he wasn’t taken seriously because of the additional income.
“As a self-employed person for many years, it is strange for me to put myself in the social hammock,” said the husband in the interview.
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In addition to the pension, basic security is also available to everyone who has such a low income or assets that it is not enough to cover their living expenses, the German pension insurance describes in a brochure.
This is affecting more and more retired people.
As a guideline, she gives 973 euros per month per person.
The age limit for the standard old-age pension must be reached, which applies to the couple.
Alternatively, basic security also applies in the event of total incapacity.
People who have given away their assets or lost them carelessly are excluded from receiving basic security.
However, since the share transactions were carried out without an order and without a required risk assessment, this would probably not exclude the couple.