According to independent.co.uk, Norway is on the 6th place of 21 most expensive countries to live in, with around 925£ per month to rent an 1 bedroom apartment. Bearing this in mind, is there any chance of possibility to live cheap there?
1. Groceries and daily necessites – choosing the right shop can be a huge difference in the budget after a while. When in need to buy simple groceries and basic home necessites you should search for Rema 1000, Kiwi or Spar. In Rema and Kiwi you can find First Price products, which basically belong to the Norwegian low cost private label and are usually the lowest price in whole store (of certain kind of product).
2. Clothing and such – Let’s be honest, clothes here are pretty expensive. You can use old trick and look for mid-season sales or black friday thing, however, not everyone has time for that. In that case you can search for Gjenbrukshuset in your town. It’s a charity thrift shop with not only clothes (sometimes you can find real pearls there) but also furniture, dishes, books, cds and many other things. You can also seatch for antique shops (with cheap stuff, not the ones for collectors) like that from my Trondheim post: Trondheim – Second day & Leaving. There’s also plenty of loppemarked’s which is basically a flea market, where local people set up their things to sell along a road. It’s usally also a pretty fun thing to do in the spare time.
3. Alcohol and such – well, that’s a loss game there. You can try everything, but only avoiding drinking a lot can be a good idea. Alcohol is especially expensive here, and there’s also few rules when you can buy it and where. If you love beers, you should always go for the store-ones, not in the pub. For one beer in pub, you could easily buy around 3 cheap ones in a shop. However, I have heard that it’s a good idea to go to Sweden for that kind of shopping, because it’s remarkably cheaper there. I have never tested it out, but according to my information, Norwegians do that regularly. Another way is having relatives in cheaper countries, so they can send you some. But that’s way too desperate for me.
4. Accomodation – in my case it’s simple student accomodation, so I shouldn’t have a word here – since only students can get something like that. However, I have seen some offerts on facebook groups containing nice amount of money for sharing apartment. So if you are comfortable with living with someone else, whom you don’t usually know, I would recommed searching for something like that. For example, shared apartment for 2000 NOK per month in Oslo.
5. Transport – no revelation here – the cheapest way to travel inside the city is to take bike. A lot of Norwegians do that, even if the weather is not kind. I used to say Norwegians don’t walk, they ride their bicycles. It’s funny but it’s totally true. Buses can be expensive, but if you work or study far from your accomodation, it’s a good way to go, especially in winter (winter in Norway, brr). For example in Hedmark region, season ticket for student (every bus in localisation) costs 352 NOK. It’s quite a nice price, comparing to trains or having a car.
That’s all I can think of now. If I will have someting more on the subject, more posts will come.
Hope you all have a great week.
againorway 