Germans with a more cynical outlook might tell you that the German bureaucracy is gobbling up staggering amounts of taxpayer money for doing barely any job at all, and basically leech off value creating jobs to fund their generous benefits. That is, if you want your job to be actually impactful in some way, you'll end up a "slave" funding some civil servant's lengthy yearly vacation as well.

I'm not quite there yet though.

Worker conditions are certainly better, but life is expensive and bureaucracy is annoying here too.

> it’s depressing when we make a lot of money and somehow can’t save much of it.

I obviously don't know your situation nor how you handle your finances. If you have the time to spare though, The Millionaire Next Door is a interesting read on exactly this topic (how some people with high incomes don't seem to be able to save a lot of money, while some others actually manage the inverse). Not saying that it'll fix your situation, but it might provide an interesting perspective. Best of luck to you in any case, I'm sure you'll get through it.