Since I spend a healthy portion of my writing railing on (and on and on and on) about how expensive everything is in Sweden, I figured I would rack my brain and give a few examples of things that are actually a good value here. It is true that things are commonly two times, but often three, four or more times, as costly than in the States but occasionally there is a rare something that is not.
Not to fear, we have our own set of economic illiterates in charge hoping to destroy our standard of living as well. They are doing a might good job of it too, I might add.
So, here we go:
Dried Spices: For whatever reason, you can buy just about any dried spice for about the equivalent of two dollars. It is, many times, twice that in the US.
Fresh Herbs: Ditto. And they come in little pots so I guess if you are the green thumbed kind of sort you can "grow" them. Having a black thumb, I have never actually had any success with this endeavor.
Fresh Flowers: You can buy a gorgeous, big bouquet of fresh flowers for the equivalent of ten dollars. Even less sometimes. I shudder to think what they would cost in the US. Generally, a half dead bouquet of varying degrees of not so pretty flowers from the grocery store will run you $10.
Movie Rentals: You can rent 3 new releases for about the equivalent of $12. I think they average around $5 a rental in the US.
Bear in mind, I am basing this on my rate of 7.9SEK to the dollar. The currencies are doing a bit of jostling at the moment in favor of the US dollar as the Euro heads into the abyss, hopefully not taking the Swedish Krona with it.
Well, that's something, at least. :)
ReplyDelete