From Average Earner to Millionaire: The Hidden Advantages They Don’t Mention

The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung recently published a feel-good piece about four “normal earners” who became millionaires. Heartwarming stuff, until you actually read the fine print. One subject, a 63-year-old self-employed tax advisor, attributes her €1.2 million fortune to savvy Apple stock picks starting in the early 2000s. What the article buries beneath the inspirational veneer is more telling: she had enough disposable income to invest heavily in stocks during her prime earning years, stayed in the public health insurance system paying just €100 monthly, and could funnel her gains into real estate before the market went berserk.

This isn’t a financial strategy, it’s a lottery ticket that happened to hit, combined with structural advantages that most Germans simply don’t have.

The “Normal Earner” Who Wasn’t

The FAZ article’s central figure, a self-employed Steuerberaterin, is labeled a “Normalverdiener” despite running her own practice during Germany’s economic boom years. Let’s be blunt: self-employed tax advisors in the 1990s and 2000s weren’t scraping by on median wages. They were riding the wave of German reunification, EU expansion, and complex tax reforms that made their services indispensable.

More critically, the article mentions she “never switched to private health insurance” and now pays only €100 monthly for public coverage. This isn’t frugality, it’s a systemic advantage. Private health insurance in Germany can cost €500-800 monthly for self-employed individuals, especially as they age. By staying in the gesetzliche Krankenversicherung system during her high-income years, she likely saved over €100,000 that could be redirected into those famous Apple shares. Most self-employed professionals don’t have this option, they’re forced into private insurance due to income thresholds or professional status.

The Garage from Mom and Other Fairy Tales

Online discussions about similar success stories reveal a pattern of omitted details. When tech founders credit their success to “starting in a garage”, they rarely mention the garage belonged to their parents, located in a wealthy suburb with excellent infrastructure and safety. When they talk about “bootstrapping”, they leave out the family connections that secured their first major contract or the inheritance that prevented personal financial ruin during early failures.

One particularly telling critique of wealth narratives points out that many successful entrepreneurs had “nothing except mom’s garage and her connections to IBM.” The IBM connection alone is worth more than most people’s entire professional network. In Germany’s relationship-driven business culture, where Vitamin B (Beziehungen) often trumps merit, such access is the difference between a startup that scales and one that starves.

The Child-Free Wealth Accelerator

Perhaps the most taboo advantage in wealth accumulation is choosing not to have children. The FAZ article’s subjects are conspicuously silent on this topic, but the math is brutal: raising a child in Germany costs approximately €150,000-250,000 until age 18, excluding university. For a dual-income couple, that’s half a million euros that could compound in an investment portfolio over two decades.

Critics of wealth narratives often point this out bluntly: “The good old tricks: get old, save early, get money for your first investments as a gift, no kids, etc. So easy.” The sarcasm cuts deep because it’s true. Child-free professionals can accept career risks, relocate for opportunities, and invest aggressively without worrying about school districts or childcare costs. This isn’t a judgment on personal choices, it’s a mathematical reality that most success stories conveniently ignore.

Timing Is Everything (Except You Can’t Control It)

The Apple stock example perfectly illustrates why these narratives are dangerous as financial advice. Buying Apple in 2001 and holding for 20 years yielded 11,000% returns. But this required:
– Having investable capital during the dot-com crash aftermath
– The nerve to invest in a company many thought was dying
– The luck to avoid selling during multiple 50%+ drawdowns
– Perfect foresight about the iPhone revolution

This wasn’t skill, it was being in the right place at the right time with disposable income. For every Apple millionaire, thousands of Germans who invested in Nokia, Deutsche Bank, or Wirecard saw their savings evaporate. The difference wasn’t intelligence or discipline, but pure luck.

The Real Estate Time Machine

Many German millionaires built wealth through property, but they’re buying in a market that no longer exists. A €100,000 down payment bought a substantial house in 2014 Germany. That same property now costs €600,000, requiring €120,000 just for closing costs and fees. Meanwhile, wages haven’t kept pace, and the Eigenkapital requirements have tightened significantly.

The FAZ subject who used her Apple gains as a down payment in 2014 entered the market at its last accessible moment. Today’s “Normalverdiener” faces a brutal reality: even with perfect savings discipline, property ownership in major German cities requires either inherited wealth or a partner with equal earning power. The wealth-building playbook of “buy property, wait, profit” is now a historical artifact, not a viable strategy.

What This Means for Realistic Financial Planning

The uncomfortable truth is that most wealth narratives function as ideological comfort food. They tell us that merit and discipline determine outcomes, while obscuring the structural advantages that actually drive wealth accumulation. For Germans trying to build genuine financial security, this misdirection is dangerous.

• Acknowledge your starting position: If you have family wealth, professional connections, or structural advantages, leverage them honestly. If you don’t, stop comparing your path to those who do.
• Calculate the true cost of life choices: Having children, caring for aging parents, or pursuing passion work over lucrative work has real financial consequences. Plan for them explicitly rather than hoping for lottery-ticket investments.
• Focus on risk management, not optimization: The self-employed tax advisor’s real advantage wasn’t picking Apple, it was staying insured affordably and avoiding catastrophic losses. In German finance, Vorsorge (provision) beats speculation every time.
• Understand that some wealth is timing-dependent and non-replicable: The DAX at 3,000 points in 2009 was a once-in-a-generation opportunity. At 16,000 points, the risk-reward calculation is entirely different. Adjust expectations accordingly.

The German Specificity

Germany’s system actually makes some advantages more pronounced. The Erbschaftsteuer (inheritance tax) has generous exemptions for family businesses, meaning inherited Mittelstand ownership transfers largely tax-free. The gesetzliche Rentenversicherung provides a baseline that allows higher-risk investments with other funds. And the Krankenversicherung system creates massive savings opportunities for those who can game it legally.

But these are system features, not personal virtues. The tax advisor’s €100 monthly insurance is a function of Germany’s income-linked public system, not her frugality. Her ability to stay in that system while earning high self-employed income is a loophole most can’t access.

Conclusion: Honesty as Strategy

The most valuable financial planning insight isn’t “save more” or “invest better”, it’s radical honesty about which advantages you actually have. Germans love planning (Planung), but effective planning requires accurate inputs. If your financial model assumes Apple-stock returns or inherited property, you’re not planning, you’re fantasizing.

Realistic wealth building for actual Normalverdiener looks different: maximizing Betriebsrente and Riester-Rente subsidies, aggressive debt avoidance, and treating homeownership as a lifestyle choice rather than an investment. It means acknowledging that a seven-figure net worth might require 40 years of disciplined saving, not a decade of brilliant stock picking.

The FAZ article’s subjects aren’t liars, they’re just narrating their lives. The deception is in presenting these narratives as reproducible strategies. They aren’t. They’re lottery stories with better PR.