She is proud of herself, says Heidi, a 65-year-old pensioner, in the RTLZWEI report “Poor Germany: stamp or job”. Of course, she had imagined her retirement differently after a lifetime of working.
But accepting money from the State is beyond their means. Never. She is not a freeloader who places a burden on her hard-working fellow citizens.
In order to be a “real grandmother”, who can spontaneously eat ice cream with her grandchildren or go to the cinema despite her low pension of just under 600 euros a month, she simply continues working, up to six times a week. .
Heidi often just eats sandwiches for days.
He mainly cleans offices in his city for three different cleaning companies. The long work hours would make some money. He then spends it on his grandchildren.
But they usually only have enough money for themselves. Of course you can't have everything at the same time, says Heidi. After all, life is not a concert of wishes.
“Sometimes it happens that all week I only eat bread and butter,” says Heidi. Buying “shoes for 50 euros” or “a jacket for 60 euros” is “out of the question” for her. She would rather save for the next grandchild's birthday or one of the numerous holidays.
Few German retirees can enjoy their retirement
Nowadays in Germany one can hardly expect a life of luxury from any pensioner. The media recently reported on an exceptional case: a pensioner who has 120,000 euros a year said that money “is only a problem when you don't have enough.”