now, I am scared to see it :o/ hopefully, you already made more than you invested.
You are doing freelance work in C++ in Germany and making ard 33k? You are doing it wrongly. If I remember GULP (check it out) correctly average shd be 70€/h. Assuming min 1000 billable hours per year shd lead to at least 70k. Honestly, move out of Berlin (i am assuming) asap.
Yes, I know. 
The work I do at the moment is pure fun - but as a drawback I earn less money. I can’t tell exactly what I’m doing because I’m too easy to find in the internet. But I’m combining computer science with creativity and games and books and stories and programming. But in my sector 33k is very good, especially if you are involved in doing “something” with games.
Berlin, Munich, Hamburg and other big cities are expensive. But if you live in the suburbs, it’s Ok. I like it where I live.
btw: 70.000 Euros sounds like a lot of money. But if you work as a freelance programmer, you have to pay all insurances by yourself (and don’t forget the taxes). So you have to subtract these costs. At the end, you have maybe 40.000 Euros …
Beep you Discourse, quit suggesting I read old topics and then chiding me for wanting to reply to a 10-month old topic. Discourse does an awful lot of that kind of thing…
Anyway, I recently received a job ad for something in the UK that said this:
Note: This role pays up to £70,000 GBP per year, which is roughly equivalent to a $150,000 USD salary due to lower cost of living and lower tax.