A 31-year-old management consultant living in the center of Munich assured in the German media that although His annual gross salary is 81,000 euroswhich is above average, is not happy with it because of the sacrifices it entails and the burden of her current job.
After three years in management consulting, Lisa—not her real name—started two months ago at a new consulting firm. “In addition to my salary, my employer also pays other benefits such as a company car, supplemental pension insurance and business travel expenses,” he said.
Despite this, he confessed: “Although my gross annual salary of 81,000 euros is above average, when calculated based on my working hours, I don’t find it completely satisfactory. For a salary of 15 euros an hour, I travel and work a lot, sometimes I don’t even have time to eat. Or the customers are in a bad mood.”
“My contract is based on a trust-based working hours system, which stipulates that I must work the standard day. In practice, I work 60 hours a week. I do not receive additional remuneration for overtime,” he explained. And he revealed: “Currently, my final balance is 0 euros at the end of each month. “This is mainly due to the high expenses I have had in recent months, which I am still paying in installments.”
One of these recent expenses included her decision to choose to freeze her eggs. “If I don’t find a partner in five years, or if it doesn’t happen naturally, this will allow me to have the possibility of pregnancy and having biological children later. Egg extraction is very expensive, it costs between 4,000 and 5,000 euros. That’s why, for now, I preferred to pay for it in installments,” he said.
Added to this are day-to-day expenses. “The economic situation is very tight. I live in the center of Munich and pay 1,650 euros a month, including expenses, for a 43 square meter, one and a half room apartment, built in the 80s. I even have a small balcony and a roof terrace, but the apartment itself is nothing special for the price.”
He also noted that he has private health insurance for which he pays about 700 euros per month. In addition, she commented: “I spend between 300 and 500 euros on groceries, partly because I eat out a lot. As a management consultant, I sometimes have to go out to eat with clients, although I would like to save. And since I usually spend the night out, I almost never cook at home. I can deduct some of these expenses as business expenses, but what I mean is that I can’t always decide it myself.”
