hTTi

Well this post was a massive relief and well-timed. Kid#4 finally remembered to bring his paperwork folder home with him so we sat with the Buhl software he bought on your recommendation, Panda, and made our way through his depressing tax return - and it became clear that unlike Kid#3, he only has i...

Presumably though, some of this type of stuff is going to be more expensive outside cities, where there is less competition, fewer customers and maybe crappier supply chains. So mid-nowhere-in-the-Eifel is quite possibly more expensive than Munich or Hamburg or the other massive cities. Or not, I am...

We've got a pretty crap tenant who has been through periods of not paying his rent etc, but it is his home, and he has a dog - it wouldn't be easy for him to find another home, and the house is not mortgaged. So I suck it up. It is a cheap house and we are not talking lots of money and we don't coun...

Yeah, we've started asking family not to send parcels over. If they forget to tick 'gift' you get the Zoll and then DHL charge you for refusing (in my case) to deliver the parcel anyway. So annoying.

Ooh, nice. As a result of visiting the Welterbe site at Bad Wilhelmshöhe (really quite middle) I was looking at other Welterben in Germany and came across the whole Moravian thing you've got going there in Herrenhut. Looks like a nice place to live. What has you living in that corner, if that's OK t...

Well, absolutely!

We have been carefully obeying the 'buy it and cancel it before the 10th' since the start.

This is a game changer. Thanks to Panda.

And thanks to Bethann for her report - always good to see a follow-up.

Franklan wrote: ↑Thu May 01, 2025 4:24 pm This leads me to recomment a clay animation short film called Harvie Krumpet, it is just lovely. Well spend 23 minutes, I am confident you will enjoy.

This was a great recommendation, thank you - I watched it shortly after you posted it and it was fabulous.

Does your kid's German school offer exchanges with schools in other countries? If so, you could ask them what kind of insurance they recommend for kids going on such exchanges.

Slightly different Steuerbescheinigung question. We've had ours from the Commerzbank. It has 0 entered all over it. Looks as though we don't enter anything in to Elster. Last year we had a Festgeld Anlage which paid out 1,350 in June (2024). I also had a blob of money from Premium Bonds. This takes ...

That's nuts. So of the three you posted, the normal one was quicker by far. Sheesh. @alberto, I'm with FrauFruit on this one - the amount paid by the buyer for postage is paid by them for the service they chose, just like in an online shop. You don't get to give them a cheaper service and keep the r...

Thank you

We used the Fünftelregel to put an extraordinary income sum onto our Elster tax return for 2022. The details were still sat there last year, and are still there now, but I think we should get rid of them - I think it gets entered the once, the maths is done, payment made, and everyone is finished wi...

On this topic..... Oh, and I looked at Trustpilot just now. Elektrizität Berlin has a 1,2 Star rating from 1103 reviews. I can understand why. Ouch! We read our own - get forms end of Dec to fill in and return for the New Year (or online codes). . The new monthly payment is based on previous years ...

When the British cubs, scouts, brownies, guides etc were doing their thing through the British Army of the Rhine etc, there were rules in place about who could join. These were to protect local organisations from being affected by local kids defecting for whatever reason. I suppose these American Gi...

Oh yes! It was so cold in the evening that we lit the oven and got the living room lovely and warm and cosy! We've been considering lighting ours - so far we've just gone for blankets and stealing the cat from each other as a warmer :) I think we might crack today because it's really quite cold and...

Thank you. I'll pass all of that on to her.

Right. So Kid#3 has been to see the suggested (by her works union) Steuerberaterin from Steuerring who does seem to know the ins and outs of her work situation and what you can claim etc, which is good. However when it comes to investments, she has not heard of the Vorabpauschale and does not believ...

Sounds like a grand plan. Oatmeal or zart oats? Rewe do oatmeal nowadays. Hats off to you for actually doing this. We bought a sausage maker thingy from Lakeland ltd about 30 years ago and I think we finally chucked it out (passed it on, I should say) about 5 years ago having never once given it a g...

Yes! Weirdy weirdo vibes. No-one should be trying to see you inside your home unless they think your life is at risk. I remember stories of your close-by neighbours from the past. Strange people, calling the police and taking out court orders against each other, if memory serves. I'd say get blinds ...

Arunadasi did this - she had a load of hassle with the KK as I remember, but her citizenship(s) situation was different and I don't know what effect that had.

I think Pandamunich was helping her back in the day.

Hopefully one of them will come on and tell you useful stuff.