The average pensioner in Germany earns only about 1,550 euros a month. In the big cities, this is barely enough to rent an apartment the size of a matchbox. And even in the cheapest areas, you can barely make ends meet.
It is therefore not surprising that there is so much advice for retirement: the best thing, they say, is to continue having a private pension insurance. Or a property as a guarantee in old age. Or shares. Ideally all.
The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung has now documented what the pension of a person who could afford all this would look like, with the individual case of former banker Meinolf Schwens.
“There I won very well, everything at its best”
According to “FAZ”, the former banker lives very modestly in Gelsenkirchen. Schwens has a real banking career behind him, the newspaper writes. After completing his studies, the 70-year-old worked at the Dresdner Bank in several cities, eventually occupying the position of department director. That was at the beginning of the new millennium.
A few years before Commerzbank took over the then number three in the sector, the bank was cutting jobs. Schwens was due to be transferred, but this did not feel like a “breakfast”. He will move to the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) in the Leverage Finance division. “That was a success. I earned very well there, everything was great,” Schwens told the “FAZ”.
In 2009, at the start of the financial and debt crisis in Europe, Schwens bought his wife's grandparents' house in the Charente department, between Bordeaux and Poitiers. The “cottage” with a living area of 300 square metres and a park-like garden costs 100,000 euros.
The banker finances the house with a ten-year mortgage. Schwens explains to the FAZ that the financing should have been paid off when he retired. Schwens' property in France also explains the rather simple life in his hometown of Gelsenkirchen.
Banker receives severance check and then looks for work for a long time
Then came the problems. RBS is shaking from the financial crisis. Schwens receives compensation before the closure of his department. 180,000 euros.
“Any sensible person will say to you: 'Are you stupid? You accept the cheque without having anything useful up your sleeve?!'” – that is how Schwens sees the offer today. At the time, however, he thought he was still young enough and accepted the cheque, half of which quickly ended up in the tax office.
At the same time, he had to continue contributing money to the house in France. He wants to grow old there with his wife. The purchase price had to be doubled for renewal and renewal. Schwens went looking for a job, but quickly realized: “When you're 50, you won't find a new job, you can forget about it.”
In the end, Schwens tried several times with his own companies, including a management consultancy and a financial brokerage firm. Today he calls the companies “Klitsche” and “French Fries Shop.” The money was no longer flowing as it once had. The former banker had to borrow money from friends to be able to keep his house and apartment.
Ultimately, at the age of 62, Schwens began working as an administrator at a nonprofit organization. He currently continues to work there, although he is already retired. Schwens clearly states that his legal pension would not be able to cover all his remaining expenses.
Four pensions and money is sometimes scarce
“If I only had my legal pension of 1,600 to 1,700 euros, I could work a lot. But with these four pensions together, of course, things are completely different,” says the banker, who in addition to the statutory pension also receives payments from the insurance association of the banking sector, the internal pension of the Dresdner Bank and the insurance of Luxembourg pensions because he also worked there as a banker.
The conclusion is that Schwens, who supports his French wife, has around 60,000 euros net. Of these, 12,000 euros are needed to live and 5,000 euros for insurance. He also pays 9,000 euros in rent for the house in Gelsenkirchen and another 5,500 euros for the expenses of the house in France, which has already been paid.
«It's wonderful to have a holiday home abroad. But we have no idea what that means,” says Schwens. This includes property taxes and other fixed costs. Schwens and his wife also each need a car for professional reasons. Therefore, he spends another almost 8,000 euros a year on cars and mobility.
If Schwens ever stops working at the club, he will probably move permanently to France. However, the former banker hopes to still have money to buy a small apartment in Germany. “You want to be close to friends and family,” Schwens told “FAZ.”