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Anna Reger

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About Author

When I was 20, I made what seemed like an insane decision: I dropped out of university in Novosibirsk, Siberia, and moved to Berlin with nothing but determination and terrible German.

I learned the language the hard way – by showing up, working, connecting, and making plenty of mistakes along the way. Eventually, I got into a German university and spent the next decade building a career in EdTech, specializing in UX research and research operations.

Anna Reger

Author

About Author

When I was 20, I made what seemed like an insane decision: I dropped out of university in Novosibirsk, Siberia, and moved to Berlin with nothing but determination and terrible German.

I learned the language the hard way – by showing up, working, connecting, and making plenty of mistakes along the way. Eventually, I got into a German university and spent the next decade building a career in EdTech, specializing in UX research and research operations.

Leaving employment in Germany is designed to fail me, really.

Let’s talk money.

It’s day 341 of me receiving unemployment benefits. In Germany, that’s 60% of your average previous salary – around €2,100 in my case. On top of that, since I took the leap, the state is paying me €300 extra, a subsidy that is supposedly helping me transition into full-time self-employment when revenue is typically low and unpredictable. Ca. €2,400 a month, cool.

I now pay my own health insurance. The lowest rate for I could negotiate is €480 monthly – for the first four months they charged me €780 monthly.

Rent €900, I pay for all my tools €200, other insurances €100, I try and pay people to help me navigate this… I live in Berlin, not the cheapest place, and I spend €1,000 on average for food and stuff.

Very little money left to invest in the actual biz.

So, ouch.

Don’t get me started on the mental space I am investing to figure all of this money / taxes / legal stuff out.

Over the weekend I wanted to apply for the extension of the €300 subsidy (plz, cover at least a big part of the health insurance!) and the lady on the phone said that my sustainability is highly questionable (with my absolutely great growth numbers but weird cashflow). I rolled my eyes so hard it hurt.

Now, could I still make it? I am not only here to moan.

  1. Yes, I can make it! My severance from being laid off gives me extra cash to prolong my runway. So if you are being laid off – negotiate better, get more cash. Seriously, 10K netto is 3 months of runway. I wish I had gone an extra step to secure more. If you need help negotiating – I can help.

  2. I can make it because I have a solid career behind me and network, so I land research gigs. I love research. I wish I’d started building up my visibility and taking better care of my professional network earlier, while I was still employed.

  3. I can still make it because, despite the time I “lost” solving wrong problems and whining, I stopped planning and hiding, went forward and started sharing what I have to share. 

The numbers and signs are great, the cashflow will get normalised, I am certain of that. Even if the unemployment center lady was not convinced.

I regret nothing, I don’t owe investment money or any explanations to anybody, so I am delulu enough to keep on doing the thing. It’s turning out beautifully… If you need some of that magic dust (not the Berlin kind) – I am happy to talk to you.

P.S. The lady from the unemployment agency actually gave me another chance, saying I should please send her some more invoices when I have them, so all is good. They really never truly consulted me, but they are ok.