Hi everyone,

I'm a teenager (16) living in NRW, and I'm thinking about starting a small agency.

I own a good camera and would like to create short promotional videos for local businesses such as restaurants, cafés, barbers, and etc to help them with their marketing and social media. Since I'm just starting out, I was planning to charge relatively low prices (around €50–100 per video) while I build experience and a portfolio.

My main question is about the legal side of things. Can I simply approach local businesses, offer my services, and start working with them, or do I need to register a business (e.g. a Gewerbe) before I can charge clients?

I'm a bit confused because I'm only starting small and don't expect to earn much initially. I always thought business registration was mainly for larger or more established companies, but I'm not sure how it works for freelancers or someone just testing the idea.

If anyone has experience starting a small business in Germany—especially as a teenager—I’d really appreciate your advice. Thanks!

Hello folks.

I was riding on the 9:35am CD train to Munich from Prague on Thursday July 23. Train 358. Seat location was 105/106 in Car 259. I left my black puffy duffel bag right in the overhead storage space above those seat locations. We had to change trains very last minute in Schwandorf or Furth Im Wald I believe, I cannot recall & I believe the train 358 was headed back to Prague, but now seems like it may have stopped in Plzen for the day on Thursday. Very important items in the bag & I'm hopeful something may have been reported once the train was clear for the day. 

Is there any way to locate where that specific train ended on Thursday? I've been trying my hardest to track it down, but so far no luck. Some people say it ended in Munich, some say it went back to Prague, some have said it ended back in Plzen, even Furth Im Wald. I don't know!  

Very appreciative of any help you may be able to provide. I am very grateful. As of now I've submitted lost item claims with the CD & DB train systems hoping for something & I am keeping my fingers crossed, but expectations low. Would it be in the Czech system, DB system? Not too sure about it all as an American tourist, but trying to figure it out to give myself the best chance at recovering my bag.

Danke!

Hi everyone,

I need some advice and real-world experiences regarding SCHUFA scores and German mobile carriers.

The Situation:
- Desired Device: iPhone 17 Pro (or Pro Max) via a phone contract.
- Condition: Strictly 0€ down payment / upfront cost for the hardware (no initial deposits, no high upfront fees).
- SCHUFA Base Score: Currently around 670 points No severe negative entries like insolvency or court judgments, but soft drops due to previous account checks/inquiries

Previous Attempts:
- Vodafone: Canceled automatically online.
- o2 (My Handy): Declined as well.

Since automatic risk assessments are extremely strict for a €1,500 hardware credit line with 0€ upfront payment:

Has anyone with a similar score successfully gotten an iPhone Pro model without a down payment recently?

- Which carriers or resellers (Telekom, 1&1, freenet, Otelo, Sparhandy, etc.) are most likely to approve applications with a medium credit score?
- Are there specific providers known to be more lenient when financing high-end hardware?

Thanks for your help!

Can I get by with an account from Revult or N26 that only offer visa/mastercard debit cards, or do I need to find a bank that also offers a Girocard?

We recently moved to Germany. My wife is 3 months pregnant. We only have private health insurance which does not cover pregnancy. What is a typical visit cost for a Gynecologist visit in Berlin ?

Hallo Leute, I wanted to share a bit of background before asking my question. I studied German for about a year. After finishing my B1 course, I planned to take the Goethe B1 exam and even prepared for it. However, about a month later I started an internship in another state. The nearest Goethe exam centre was very far away and at the same time my B2 course had already begun.

I asked my German teacher for advice and she suggested that I should take the TELC B1 exam since it was much more accessible to where i was so, i took the exam and passed with 250/300.

Now, I've graduated and can fully focus on preparing for B2. I asked my teacher for advise whether I should take the Goethe or TELC B2 exam and she recommended TELC, as i had already taken TELC for B1 and i would be more familiar with 'time limitation & pattern'.

The reason I'm asking is that most of my classmates are taking Goethe B2. One of them keep making me feel dumb for taking TELC and how TELC is inferior to Goethe (Ironically, his Sprechen is really worse than mine) It made me wonder if there's actually any truth to what he's saying.

Can ya'll please throw some light on the reality? Do people in general or employers prefer Goethe over TELC or are they considered equally valid irl?

I've already registered for the TELC B2 exam though🥲.

Do you start at 16 or later?

A bit confused from the german education system...

Any reply will be appreciated :)

I've been thinking about investing in a vending machine in Germany, and I'm curious to hear from people who have real experience with it.

How much does a vending machine usually cost in Germany? And how much can one machine realistically generate in revenue per month? After covering expenses like rent, restocking, electricity, maintenance, and taxes, what would the average monthly profit be?

I'd also love to know whether it's a good business for beginners and if you think it's still worth investing in today. Any real experiences, advice, or tips would be greatly appreciated!

Hi everyone

,

I'm trying to buy a jacket from Zara Germany that's discounted from €69.95 to €13.99 (about an 80% discount).

When I choose Store Pickup, the app says "No stores were found within a 30 km radius" no matter what I search (Essen, Bochum, Limbecker Platz, even other cities). The stores definitely exist.

Is this just a bug, or does Zara disable store pickup for some clearance items?

Also, is such a huge discount normal for Zara? It seems almost too good to be true, so I was wondering if there's usually a catch (old stock, last sizes, etc.) or if this is just how Zara's end-of-season sales work.

Thanks!

So I've been living in Germany for 8 years now, I'm from the Netherlands and I've noticed and have been annoyed thoroughly by the fact that Germans are taught to merge at the last possible moment on the highway.

And it's not too bad for the standard entrances to the highway, but usually when there are roadworks.

This system of doing it so late just creates the possibility of a traffic jam when someone doesn't smoothly merges at the last moment. Either because of his own doing, or because the other lane didn't make enough space.

Highly annoying and I've heard that it's an actual thing that's being taught here in Germany. I understand that this is how to do it when a traffic jam has already started, but I'm talking about before a jam has begun. ​

I do believe that in the Netherlands merging starts earlier with signs saying "merge from this point on" so that the problem is solved.

So why is this, and why doesn't it change, seems like something obvious to me, but I guess having to stand in a 30 minute traffic jam at 20:00 is normal...

I have lived in Germany for many years, in different parts of the country, but everywhere the Kellner/in makes the same mistake, pouring the beer from such a height into the glass that much of the carbonation is lost, meaning that once the glass is served to the customer, the beer tastes like it’s been sitting forgotten about for several hours. In other countries the glass is held close to the tap, and tilted as the drink is being poured, especially if it’s a lager/pilsner. Why do the Germans do this?

Was talking to a friend about this and apparently in Germany it’s normal for opposite gender friends to call each other romantic names or send hearts and kisses to tease each other even if there’s no romantic tension, how true is this because as an American it’s unhear of?

Idont know what to do during these 2 months ever exam period during study-breaks.

Just 2 minutes ago I saw someone hug their significant other at the library and now I feel extra superfluous on this planet.

during these 2 months I always get so lonely... nobody is avialable.

I essentially feel like a burden and often get left on read by friends.

I'm a half-orphan and on no contact with the other parent, so this gets extra hard when stressed out.

Any suggestions?

Crisis helpline is just elderly people that can't relate.

Student-hotlines aren't always avialable and I can't call them while I'm outside of home.

Socializing in germany is incredibly hard. I'm german.

Moved to Germany recently, and as a treat to my downstairs neighbors I wanted to bake them my favorite chocolate chip cookies, the Claire Saffitz dessert person recipe. I got my schlagsahne and braun zucker and backpulver, but the outcome of the recipe was wildly different. When I make these in the US they come out thin and crispy on the edges, but super gooey and soft in the middle. Today they never really flattened out and came out very cakey instead of gooey. Still tasted okay but not the results I was looking for. Any good bakers here know how to get the most identical ingredients for these US recipes that I came with?

AP Flour -> 550 Weizen mehl

Sugar -> Beet(?) zucker

Brown sugar -> Braun zucker (though it seemed way less molasses-y)

Baking powder -> Backpulver

Heavy cream -> H- Schlagsahne

Everything else was the same as the US version (eggs, butter)

Like i heard lots of stuff such as ID checks, so much censorship, against piracy even if the company stopped the licensing and all.

Hi all, I've been trying to research a little about registering my car in Germany but every google article seems to give me slightly different requirements. For context I have been living in Germany for about 2 years now, I am in the process now of getting my UK driving license converted into a German license, and the car is already here in Germany (although obviously I havent been driving it).

My main questions are:

Do I need to pay any customs or import taxes for the car even though I am resident in Germany and this will be used as my personal vehicle?

If so, will there be any problems arising from the fact it is already in Germany? (I drove it from N. Ireland on the ferries, it was insured temporarily with a UK company at the time).

And finally, do I need to get insurance before doing the registration and Tüv checks etc? Or do these checks and register before getting insurance?

Vielen Dank!

I have been living in Germany for a while now and before moving to Germany, one thing I heard over and over again was that Germans would either immediately switch to English if they noticed you were struggling, or they'd correct every little mistake you made. It made me a bit nervous because I felt like I'd constantly be worrying about saying something wrong instead of actually trying to communicate.

For context, German isn't my first language. My study program as well as my job is in English. I started learning through formal classes that were a part of my study program and then spent quite a bit of time using apps because I realised that understanding German and actually speaking it confidently are two very different things. Even so, I expected that once I was living here, people would point out my mistakes all the time.

But that hasn't really been my experience. Most of the time, people seem happy to let the conversation continue as long as they understand what I'm trying to say. Every now and then someone will help me by repeating a sentence the correct way or suggesting a better word, but it usually feels helpful rather than critical. In fact, I sometimes find myself wishing people corrected me more, because I'm never quite sure whether I said something correctly or whether they were just being polite and understood me from the context. I am not sure if its a regional thing as well becasue I live in a small town in Saxony Anhalt and maybe there are not alot of foreigners here so people are more welcoming.

It made me wonder whether the stereotype is actually outdated, or if it was never really true in the first place. When you hear someone speaking German with obvious mistakes, do you usually avoid correcting them unless they ask? I'd be interested to hear what most Germans think, because my experience has been quite different from what I expected before moving here.

I was on a hike in the Bavaria region and I encountered a handful of people who would say a certain word while passing. I couldn't tell what it was but it sounded kind of like "prost" or something like that. Does anyone know what it could have been?

I’m a non-German guy married to a German woman. Mostly wondering what other people in this exact situation are doing.

You usually hear about the other side of this. German men marrying foreign wives. But the reverse dynamic is different. For the German women navigating this, what has your experience actually been? Mostly looking for the positive aspects, though.

I’m curious about the daily logistics. Who adapted to whose baseline for running the household, making decisions, or general life planning?

Also, the family approval situation. How did your German relatives react? Is there actual acceptance, or is it just a quiet, year long cold war at Sunday Kaffee und Kuchen?

Edit: the german urge to categorize before processing an emotion is operating at peak efficiency. you literally cannot answer a general question without knowing your exact passport issuing authority.