I had to sell all my life insurance policies and savings plans

Being on 100 percent Kurzarbeit meant he could not work at all, but picked up Rosetta Stone Language 80 percent of his wages. Federal funds met about 60 percent of his pay package and the company paid the rest.CASHING IN SAVINGSMax, invited by Anna to her home to discuss his experience, is a stockily built bundle of energy, unable to stay sitting still for long. He is interrupted repeatedly by his mobile phone ringing with "Wavin' Flag", the promotional anthem for the 2010 soccer World Cup. Now he too is back at work, and it's always the office on the line.As their company races to keep up with the success of German flagship carmakers like BMW, Mercedes and Audi, Anna and Max's works council has convinced management to agree to a one-off bonus of 1,000 euros per employee to reflect the industry's improved performance.But Max says he would not wish the frustration of Kurzarbeit on even his worst enemy: it came without warning, and he still feels the effects today. "On Friday I was escorted out of the building," he recalls, taking a large sip of his coffee. "On Monday, I was at the bank, trying to refinance my house. Try doing that during Rosetta Stone English that crisis."Max earned 2,100 euros net a month before the crisis. When Kurzarbeit hit, his wife was not working because the couple had just had a second child. Kurzarbeit and overtime cuts slashed his income to about 1,400 euros, which would have left just 100 euros a month for a family of four to live on if he had not managed to refinance his mortgage."I had to sell all my life insurance policies and savings plans. I had no choice. My (mortgage) payments are now half what they were before but I'll be paying off the house until the end of time," he says. He even sold a life insurance policy he was given by his grandfather that was close to being paid out. Now thirty-something, he has no private retirement provisions left, which is storing up more pain for him and his children.The family got used to shopping at discount stores, there were no more spontaneous gifts for his wife and daughters and they haven't been on holiday since before the crisis, even though his wife owns a house in her native Turkey. "Sure, my daughters loved having me at home Rosetta Stone Korean more but a few more months and I would have lost the house," Max says. "The overdraft was at its limit... I got a lot more careful about what I'm spending, and that won't go away."