I am on about pensions Will not savings,they are automatically taxed.
I think about ?15,000 should be tax free.
There arent that many pensioners that are rich,except the Queen,and a few others mostly we are comfortable through our own making.

William, you ask me whether the Euro made us poorer or richer - the Euro made Germans poor (like chuch mice). Wages, pensions etc. are now the half amount, but the prices remained the same, i.e. instead of DM we have now EURO and the amount remained the same. Take for instance gasoline - 1 liter was about DM 1,30 and now its Euro 1,30 approx. Today I bought a salad Euro 1,39 = DM 2,78 (unbelievable, nobody would have bought a salad at this price when we had the DM, but today with the Euro we complain, but we buy it).
And as to paying in the system for the old ae pension, it's not so bad as you think - when I was young people who worked for their own account weren't forced to do anything for their old age and most of them did nothing, they just thought the "Wirtschaftswunder" (booming economy) would be for ever, but it wasn't and now there are a lot of persons that worked for their own account applying for income support - to be honest, I don't find this very funny. They spent their whole money and now the tax payer has to care for their living.
You see, there are always different sides that have to be taken into consideration. When the money is just deducted from your wage you don't really notice it and you get accustomed to getting less wage.
Please don't consider me as antisocial ......

Hi Teri,  "Anti social"  Never!! --- As Senior Citizens, we all have a lifetime of Experiance.  It's just Great, to chat about them,and Learn from othere's. I for one am pleased that you are Here. We learn what life is like, in Germany and with yourself -- Nice to share these feelings.
We do not hear much about Countries, working with euro's. Good to get that from you, Thank you for enlightening us.

Petrol = ?1.04p per litre:  Bread = ?1.23p large brown:
Milk   =    78p  "    "     Examples:

What to suggest to The Younger Generation

When we went decimal in 1971,our inflation went through the roof,the prices were rounded up so to speak,and it made an awful mess of our ecconomy I hope when we go Euro it doesnt happen all over again !

I remember butter was 1/6d
and we went euro and it went to 7 and a half pence
can any of you tell me what it is now ?
i know do you ?

Phoenix, as far as I know you don't have the Euro yet and if you ever will get it, I doubt.
As to Britian loosing its sovereignity, Phoenix, please don't be so "anti-European". Europe is really a chance for all of us.
You know we Germans have always paid more into the EU than we have received, but every thing has its price.

Mac, you ask me what is the advantage - it's certainly not a financial one, but how should I call it a "psychological" one. After WW II Germans were hated by nearly all European nations and we had to look for a new "home" and my impression is we have found it in the EU - gradually we are considered again as someone you can talk to and who will stick to his word.
Perhaps you will think I'm a dreamer, but believe me when I was young and travelling to the UK or France it was a hard thing for a German, now it's just normal. At least in the case of Germany the EU contributed to tear down barriers.

I can understand why the europians want to stay together,but we had the commonwealth and australia and new zealand etc etc etc............and they didnt cost us much !
now all the europians countries do is pay out why whats it all about ?
As I see it its about intergration,ok,so if they are coming here and other countries why are we paying them to come here surely they should be sorting their own country out first.The grants off the Eu are very good.
Its sad but we are becoming a lobsided nation we cant cope much more.

Phoenix,
you ask why we are not all happy about the fall of the wall, I'll tell you -
first the exchange rate of the Eastern Mark to the DM was one to one, although the Eastern Mark was worth really nothing.
Second we got a bankrupt and rotten country, so still everybody in Germany has to pay a "Solidary" fee to build up eastern Germany. They got the money and what did they do with it? They wasted it, because they never had learnt to deal with money properly.
Third - for pensions there was not a penny available in Eastern Germany, so they get their money from our pension system, i.e. the money that has been deducted for our pensions must now be shared with the people in Eastern Germany (hurraaa!)
Fourth - people in Eastern Germany didn't have such a good working moral and many firms from Western Germany that bought firms there had to close them. (One of my neighbours, too).
Fifth - people in Estern Germany are so different from people in Western Germany. We, in the west, always were told that we had to work and save money, those of eastern Germany say they have now to catch up on what they have missed the last 40 years and if you travel, you will everywhere meet Germans from Eastern Germany (and they have already been everywhere).
Some years ago I talked to a lady of Eastern Germany and she told me that although she is now financially better off than formerly, she is rather dissatisfied. Such a lot has changed in Eastern Germany.
Last year I was with my mother in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, they have highways with 6 lanes, but there are nearly no cars driving on them, whereas in our region we partly have highways with only 2 or 4 lanes and lots of cars and traffic jams.
So, please, don't ask me why some of us aren't as happy as they should be about the fall of the wall!