Pregnancy in Germany. 1. Problems of getting pregnant

Often it is written about pregnancy in Germany in the style of all the great and seamlessly. I tried to gather a more complete picture from my experience and the experience of my friends.

There are plenty of difficulties. Because although pregnancy is not a disease but a condition of the body, some of these conditions are such that will give odds to many diseases.

Read more

New rules for cancellation of contracts

Anti-consumer rules for canceling contracts have spoiled everyone’s nerves at least once in their lives. As soon as you accidentally light up your phone somewhere, aggressive advertisers of electric companies and insurance begin to call you.

Now I have learned not to pick up the phone if the Hamburg code is displayed, and if I do, I ask to call back later and immediately add the number to the black list.

Read more

State health insurance in Germany (GKV). How payments are formed

Actually, at first I wanted to write only basic information about what insurance there are, but I found a lot of information that can be useful to everyone. Therefore, there will be a series of posts, and we will start with state health insurance in Germany – what it is and what it pays for. Let’s make a list similar to the list “All I can return” (from taxes) – alphabetically.

There are two types of health insurance in Germany: state (gesetzliche Krankenversicherung, GKV) and private (private Krankenversicherung, PKV). In any case, you must have one of them.

Read more

Lebensversicherung (life insurance)

Lebensversicherung is not a necessary insurance, but in some cases it makes a lot of sense. According to statistics in 2017, 15 percent of the deaths were under 65 years old.

This insurance is available in two versions: without saving money (Risikolebensversicherung) and with saving money (Kapitallebensversicherung).

Read more

Non-Speaking child. 3. Speech delay treatment in Germany

Now we come to most important question: “What to do?” In other words – to speech delay treatment in Germany. In the first part it was a question “What is happening?” In the second part – “What is the cause?”

Let’s try to go from symptoms, not from age. And at the end also two important questions: What can you do yourself? and How to convince a pediatrician, that your child needs an examination?

Read more

Half timbered houses in Germany through history

Fachwerk Geschichte / History half timbered houses in Germany

Fachwerk (half timbered houses) is an ancient way of building profane buildings (that is, not churches). Similar basic principles were used in many places. But it was the Fachwerk that reached the height of art, reflecting in its development all cultural epochs – from the Middle Ages to Art Nouveau.

Most of all half-timbered houses are in Germany, but they can be seen also in France and England.

Read more

Non-speaking child. 2. Speech delay causes

Speech delay causes can be physiological, intellectual, psychological and social. The first part was about speech development and speech delay symptoms by age. Each of these symptoms means a specific disease or several diseases. I can hardly name all of them, as some of them are very specific. I will try to combine them into groups.

Once you’ve supposed what your child’s speech delay causes might be, go on to Part 3 – Speech delay treatment in Germany.

Read more

German income tax declaration. Anlage N-Aus

German tax return Anlage N-Aus / Steuererklärung Anlage N-AUS ausfüllen

For a long time I was asked to write about Anlage N-Aus, but I always advised to go to the tax consultants for the first time (in LohnsteuerHilfe Verein), since it is not simply.

This Anlage is really complex. But it is possible, that you don’t need this Anlage at all.

If you are first year in Germany or leave it this year, then you need Anlage WA-Est. it has existed since 2017.

Read about Anlage WA-Est here.

Read more