About crbl11

Status:

Expatriate  

Gender:

Female

Currently Lives:

Oslo, Norway

Citizen Of:

United States

Some Forum Posts:

Norway: cost of living in Sandefjord:

Hi, That all depends on your lifestyle really. If it's just you, living on 30k before taxes is certainly doable. Currently I'm looking for work, and my husband makes about 30k before taxes as a per-contract teacher. It's tight but we're surviving on it. So one person it's definitely fine. I don't know what the rents are like in Sandefjord, may want to check finn.no and see. But if you can get yourself a reasonably priced 1-bedroom or a studio or something you'll be fine. We live outside Oslo and pay about 7000kr a month for rent, which is a steal given the area. As Sandefjord isn't a big city I can imagine the prices will be lower. Food expenses again depend on your habits. As I'm sure you've heard by now, fast foods, alcohol, and pretty much anything fun to eat is taxed to the brim. Also some supermarkets are more expensive than others, but if you stick to a Coop or a Kiwi you're ok. Internet may run you something like 350/mo, a basic cellphone plan could be about 200-250. I think the water payment depends on the building though I'm almost sure we don't pay water here. So anyway, if you keep everything streamlined in terms of your basic expenses you'll likely have 10 or 15000kr a month left over to do what you like. If you plan to get a car or a buy/rent a house, then the 30k will definitely not be enough. Good luck :) Celeste

Norway: moving to Norway:

Hi all, Interesting to see people's reactions and stories in terms of how tough it is to live here. It really just all depends on where in the country you end up and how much of yourself you're willing to surrender and how much you're willing to hold on to. I am from New York and my husband is Norwegian. I pretty much moved here for him and after living in many different places within the US I was happy to make the jump to a new country. In some respects living here is refreshing albeit a bit weird -- people seem to "always" be on vacation, which makes it hard to network with people when looking for work. But this also means the society isn't very work-obsessed as is the case in other countries. It's a very family and nature-obsessed culture, which, as a city kid, has been very hard to get used to. As with anywhere else, you adapt you adapt your lifestyle to your income. The expense really is insane but after a while you're going to drive yourself nuts comparing it to what you're used to in your home country or other places you have lived. I have been here just over 9 months. It seems that Norwegians are quite happy in that their government takes care of them with the health system, pensions, sick leaves and so forth, but in my experience it doesn't seem to be a country based in having much "fun", apart from really loving the house-party scene. Scandinavians are known for being pretty insular. I wouldn't go so far as calling them ignorant (there's ignorant people anywhere) but they're definitely in a bit of a bubble. The "nanny-state" as someone called it is a great way to describe it. I call it Grandma Norway hehe. Most of the things one does for recreation/fun/self-flagellation (drinking, fast food, etc.) is taxed so damned high you don't even want to go to the bar because you're spending the equivalent of $15 USD for a beer. Yes, a single beer. Going out to eat or party bites into your wallet and hard, regardless of being employed full-time or if you've just moved here and have your savings from home and what not. Unless you're lucky and an employer doesn't think fluency gets in the way of doing your job, you have to be at a certain level with the language before anyone will even acknowledge you for work. It took me forever to enroll in classes here, because due to the obscene price for them if you take them at one of the language schools, I had to wait until after we were married here and I received my new visa to enroll in the free government courses. It's a luck-of-the-draw situation with those classes. Sometimes they're well organized and the group is eager to learn, other times it's a big disorganized mess. Being the only American in a class that's mostly African and Middle Eastern can get a bit weird at times too. Socially I've actually managed to make some friends, Norwegian and foreign. I haven't found people to be particularly mean or ice-cold, but then again I'm really good at talking to just about anyone so it may just be my demeanor that helps the situation. I am sorry to hear about the health services experience someone else here had on the board. The couple of times I've had to go to the hospital for a condition I have I've been well taken care of and promptly, and the language barrier wasn't a major deterrent. Finding work and keeping my mind occupied has been a battle and a half. But my background is in the arts and advertising. Not very easy areas to find work in anywhere. So that's been my experience -- not nearly as shiny happy people as I thought it would be, but not an all-out regrettable decision either. I also know I'm still in the culture-shock, hate-everything phase. Things may change. I give it another year. My husband doesn't really care if we stay or move somewhere else, so we'll see how we fare in the near future. I live about 10 minutes outside Oslo, and it's like being on the MOON. If you're going to move here at least move to Oslo. Not the most happening place on Earth but holy sh*t is it better than living in the wooded burbs. And as always I'm more than happy to meet with people and hang out, explore, complain or just sit somewhere and brainstorm about how to make this place fun, so please by all means shoot me an email if you would like to hang out :) mymirrorsilver at gmail. Good luck to you and all the rest of you who're fightin' the good fight. Love, Celeste

Date Joined:

3/19/2011

Total Posts:

3

Posts/Day:

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