[flukus]

I'm pretty similar to you, although on the other side of the world in Australia with the ~50% going into paying off apartment rather than saving right now (the only debt I've ever taken on) and much of the 50% I do spend is government sin taxes. But living within your means, not taking on debt (especially for frivolous things) and saving was instilled by my English father, I never knew it was a German attitude, just basic financial responsibility.

That financial responsibility has saved me too, during an unemployed stint I was living off the extra money I'd put against my apartment. Had I not put the money away or gone into more debt to buy a bigger apartment I would have lost it entirely and been back to renting.

The idea of living on credit is insane to me.

[majewsky]

I think that my strongest influence in that regard was my grandmother. She was born in 1937 and experienced WW2 firsthand, and her formative years were spent in East Germany when society was slowly reconstructing itself after the devastations of the war.