Source: [https://www.blick.ch/schweiz/mittelland/solothurn/nettoeinnahmen-von-7000-franken-pro-monat-yves-thomi-und-freundin-jessica-bader-aus-kappel-so-gehoeren-zur-mittelschicht-id18531241.html](https://www.blick.ch/schweiz/mittelland/solothurn/nettoeinnahmen-von-7000-franken-pro-monat-yves-thomi-und-freundin-jessica-bader-aus-kappel-so-gehoeren-zur-mittelschicht-id18531241.html)

This article drives me nuts. They are complaining about only having around 500 CHF for unexpected expenses.

TV / Internet: 85 CHF -> You can easily bring that down to 39 CHFHandy Abo: 160 CHF? Really? You can easily bring that down to 50 CHF (Flatrate, e.g Wingo) or even MORE when not going with Swisscom Network!Vollkasko Auto: 1440 CHF. Rather high. So either they did not really optimize or it’s a more expensive car! (They don’t lease so they could actually skip the vollkasko).

I already see savings around 400 CHF just in these 3 items which would nearly double their available reserve.

Rant finished.

Edit: My post is not about “Middle class” definition itself, its about that with some easy optimizations the family could double their reserve.

22 comments

  1. Agree. Also the monthly costs for their dog (chf 250) are for me a luxury.

    The handy abo may also contain device costs. Still high though.

    Regarding car insurance: I don’t know what car they have, but I was once told this:

    – Vollkasko is for leasing a new car, sometimes for just a new car.
    – Teilkasko is if you bought the car new or fairly new, or if you park it outside a lot
    – Haftpflicht for second hand car
    – for inexperienced drivers: Grobfahrlässigkeit

    I pay CHF 400 / year. (Haftpflicht)

  2. ofc you always can go cheaper or jsut accept a family is not a singel man reddit user. show me where i can get a mobil subscribtion for 4 person less than 160chf?maybe they done the subscribtion during a god time now they fall in financial struggels and can’t quit the contract?

    oh they pay 85 for tv/internet. buddy they need entertenmaint. watching dayli tv for 85/month is cheaper than go out and eat at macdonads once.

    the problem is you are lonely. for a lonely person 500 is a nice emergency budget. when you have 2 kids everything looks diferent my guy. try to show more empathie next time rater than your owm bs calculation.

    Edit: and btw they are talking about mittelschicht, this person asks why don’t he lives at the minimum. wtf

  5. Please tell me if I am wrong, but does household income of 7k for 4 people really puts you in middle class in Switzerland? Not commenting on their spending, etc, just trying to find out what characterizes you as middle class here. With current costs of life, I would assume that 7k is not even lower middle class household income here.

  9. >I already see savings around 400 CHF just in these 3 items which would nearly double their available reserve.

    Optimizing their budget isn’t a strenght for everyone. And often not even for those who would need it most.

    Saw this quite often back in the days when we did a lot of service for residential clients. Those who had problems paying their bills often at the same time were experts for having expenses that could have easily been cut down without affecting the quality.

    For example that one family (two parents, two sons) who had two subscriptions for internet+phone+tv at the same time, one with UPC and one with Swisscom. Why? “Because my son likes Swisscom TV better” (doesn’t explain why they didn’t get rid of UPC then, but oh well…) they also had the biggest netflix subscription “so that we can use it on all of our TVs” (which were five… one in every room including the kitchen…). At one point it turned out that they even paid twice for Netflix too. Also they literally paid for like five cloud subscriptions (Dropbox, iCloud, Google Drive, OneDrive and I believe even MyCloud). About once every two months they would call to set up their new smartphone or tablet. Then the SIM-Card Bingo started because for whatever reason they had s shitton of mobile subscriptions running at the same time. She also always used the latest iPhone and the latest Samsung at the same time. And she always got the newest phones for her husband who didn’t even give a fuck about whether his phone was 6 days or 6 years old.

    The wife (who was a housewife) used to complain that times where difficult for craftspeople and money is always tight but honestly her husband must have had a thriving business in order to be able to pay for all that wastefulness that she seemed to be organizing as her full-time job.

    Now that’s kind of an extreme example but I have seen several that at least are similar.

    **And of course:** money is also tight for many who are not wasting it!

  10. They should switch the part-time arrangement since she makes more than he does. Also contrary to what the article says they would probably pay less taxes if they were married since they are not full earners.

  13. 7k is still enough to put some money aside. I know people who have only 3k to 5k available per month and they are really struggling with the huge price increases in the last few years. I saw the list with the budgets and these listed allowances are just a bad joke. The budget for public transportation is so low that it is not even possible to pay a 1-2 zone abonnement for one month. The allowance is good only for 3 to 4 Tageskarte for 1-2 zones per month. CHF 360 to 390 for food per month. That’s about CHF 11 to 12 per day. Now try to cook 3 dishes per day with it.

    For every additional family member, you get only a 50% increment which lowers the daily allowance for every person in the family. With 3 members you have only CHF 8.70 per day per person for eating.

    My family lost CHF 1000.- income per month over the last 2 years while all the price increases. Now we have to struggle with only CHF 4500.- per month. At least most of the health care fee is paid for by the government.

  14. I dont understand why people always post blick article in german on this subreddit with an english commentary, it’s so odd.

  16. I am more annoyed by the suggestion of distributing more money to stay at home parents. It‘s not thought through on so many levels.

  17. People trying to teach unknown strangers how they should live their lives is peak society moment.

    From OP trying to teach them what mobile they should get and what car, to somebody else telling they should redestribute the care work because she makes more money – not a single thought about any human or social, emotional factors at all.

    Most of the people here are basically some frustrated 70year old boomer in the body of a 20year old.

  18. The main luxury they afford themselves is their dog. And holidays with kids are expensive.

    But usually, if you earn more money, you just end up spending more, up to the available budget.

  19. – Internet is not always easy to reduce due to contracts or whatever connection you could possibly get around the area. I used to live in a village where the best internet was a laggy shared coaxial network thing and we had to pay CHF 80 after getting a discount for the first year, there were simply no better options.

    – Vollkasko for CHF 1440 per year is rather low depending on the car, the age of the driver, the nationality, gender and previous registered accidents. Why should they skip on Vollkasko? Vollkasko has the best coverage and in case of kids a car might even be needed very urgently, so a Vollkasko ensures that they have their car back quickly and get a replacement for the time at the work shop. Vollkasko is mostly paid in rates of two or one per year.

    I am just trying to point out stuff, I didn’t really calculate anything, but trying to tell you why some of these things might not be easy to change.

  20. 1400 car insurance is an e-class station wagon. Or a Tesla Model Y 😉

    It’s of course cheaper for a 2007 Corsa – but who drives that as a family of four?

  22. It’s a wheening article on a high niveau, actually. Many ppl I now would celebrate it, if they could only save CHF 200 a month, yet even CHF 500? Dumb people stay dumb people.

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