Costs of living in Sverige

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Ivan NWG

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Post number 8 billion (of 16 billion to come)

Looking outside of Stockholm and equivalent big cities, how viable is an income in the range of 37-38k SEK before taxes for 2 people? I found an online tax calculator that suggested it would be about 29 or 30k after taxes.
This is my current situation from my freelancing and contract work, so using that as a yard stick since I know it can potentially take a while for my wife to be able to get a job.
 
Jim Profit said:
For a frugal person such as myself, that would work, for less frugal people, it would be a problem. For a while is probably not a problem.
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I am already prepared to get big into that "minimalism" lifestyle stuff the hipsters on Youtube always talk about :)
 
Also what is a typical wage for a generic retail job? Like working in a supermarket or a small retail shop?
 
Kind of hard to answer, you would earn just below the median income per person in Sweden (which is lower than the medium salary since it also includes people not working) but if your wife doesn't earn anything as a household you would then be earning around half the medium income, which sounds low.

On the other hand the 'riksnorm' for how much you should spend as a household on everything that isn't the rent is about 8400kr for a household of two with no kids, so say that you can rent or buy/loan to something that costs around 10k per month you would still be 10k above the norm before you are considered so poor that you would get financial aid from the government, so clearly above that. So it really comes down to how you want to live (and if you want to have a car, that can be expensive of course).
 
Björn den gode said:
Kind of hard to answer, you would earn just below the median income per person in Sweden (which is lower than the medium salary since it also includes people not working) but if your wife doesn't earn anything as a household you would then be earning around half the medium income, which sounds low.

On the other hand the 'riksnorm' for how much you should spend as a household on everything that isn't the rent is about 8400kr for a household of two with no kids, so say that you can rent or buy/loan to something that costs around 10k per month you would still be 10k above the norm before you are considered so poor that you would get financial aid from the government, so clearly above that. So it really comes down to how you want to live (and if you want to have a car, that can be expensive of course).
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That makes sense. So sounds doable for a while. Obviously we'd prefer her to work as quickly as possible, but I am just exploring the worst case situations.
 
Adding up the average montly salaries of a man and a woman in Sweden in 2024, you get SEK 83,100. So for two people to make 37,500 together is only about 46% of the average.

Medellöner i Sverige

Medellönen i Sverige är 41 600 kronor. Medellönen påverkas av en mängd olika faktorer, till exempel utbildning, yrke, ålder och kön.
www.scb.se www.scb.se
 
Ivan NWG said:
Post number 8 billion (of 16 billion to come)

Looking outside of Stockholm and equivalent big cities, how viable is an income in the range of 37-38k SEK before taxes for 2 people? I found an online tax calculator that suggested it would be about 29 or 30k after taxes.
This is my current situation from my freelancing and contract work, so using that as a yard stick since I know it can potentially take a while for my wife to be able to get a job.
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I'm not sure about the salary calculation though, free lance and contract work to me sounds like you have your own company and sends a bill 'fakturerar' that much? In that case you would have substantially less left after taxes, more somewhere around 18k.
 
Björn den gode said:
I'm not sure about the salary calculation though, free lance and contract work to me sounds like you have your own company and sends a bill 'fakturerar' that much? In that case you would have substantially less left after taxes, more somewhere around 18k.
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Good call, I used a calculator off skatteverket.se but I had entered it as wages, so Ill need to play with it a bit more.

Its a mix of royalties (think drivethruRPG) and bills to clients for work. Though for now, I am mostly trying to gauge what we will need income wise.
 
Ivan NWG said:
Post number 8 billion (of 16 billion to come)

Looking outside of Stockholm and equivalent big cities, how viable is an income in the range of 37-38k SEK before taxes for 2 people? I found an online tax calculator that suggested it would be about 29 or 30k after taxes.
This is my current situation from my freelancing and contract work, so using that as a yard stick since I know it can potentially take a while for my wife to be able to get a job.
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you’re not living large at that income, that’s for sure. Well below average. In a big city it’s rough. In a more rural -and cheap- area it’s doable. But slim.
 
Hyra: en tredjedel av din lön
Mat: 5000-6000 för två personer (kan säkert komma billigare undan)
El: 1000-2000 i södra delen av Sverige
Bil-jäkel: 1500 bara att ha den stående

Jag blir av med mellan 25k-30k per månad i rena utgifter (exklusive nöjen och liknande), men då amorterar jag 5000 kr i månaden och betalar 2500 kr för bolåneränta. 15k går åt bara åt amortering, hyra och ränta.
 
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Rickard said:
Hyra: en tredjedel av din lön
Mat: 5000-6000 för två personer (kan säkert komma billigare undan)
El: 1000-2000 i södra delen av Sverige
Bil-jäkel: 1500 bara att ha den stående

Jag blir av med mellan 25k-30k per månad i rena utgifter (exklusive nöjen och liknande), men då amorterar jag 5000 kr i månaden och betalar 2500 kr för bolåneränta. 15k går bara åt amortering, hyra och ränta.
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"Amortering"? Mortgage on house?
 
Ivan NWG said:
"Amortering"? Mortgage on house?
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Ja, precis. Idiotiskt, eftersom det är bättre att investera pengarna, men "Den som är satt i skuld är icke fri" som stadsministern sade på 90-talet när dom sanerade Sveriges otroliga statsskuld. Jag känner att jag kan förlora pengar på att känna mig trygg ekonomiskt. Skulle jag förlora jobbet eller på något annat sätt få större utgifter kan jag alltid sluta amortera. Amorteringen är, på ett sätt, en del av mitt sparande.
 
Rickard said:
Ja, precis. Idiotiskt, eftersom det är bättre att investera pengarna, men "Den som är satt i skuld är icke fri" som stadsministern sade på 90-talet när dom sanerade Sveriges otroliga statsskuld. Jag känner att jag kan förlora pengar på att känna mig trygg ekonomiskt. Skulle jag förlora jobbet eller på något annat sätt få större utgifter kan jag alltid sluta amortera. Amorteringen är på ett sätt en del av mitt sparande.
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If its any consolation, our current mortgage here in yankeeland is 1300 USD (12000 SEK?) and while the house is quite big, its also in a terrible location. And thats not counting property taxes which is another 400 a month.

or did you mean you are paying 5k extra every month?
 
En bra sak att känna till om nordiska banker är att dom inte vill att du ska betala av lånet. Det är räntan i sig som ger dom pengar. Att du amorterar (betalar av i förtid varje månad) tjänar dom inga pengar på, men det är krav från staten att folk ska amortera (1-2% av lånets storlek). Det är en anledning till varför det är så låg ränta här jämfört med USA eller Australien.
 
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Jag vågar fan inte ens skriva hur mkt mina våra utgifter är varje månad, men det är bra mkt mer än er bruttolön 🫣
 
Platon said:
Jag vågar fan inte ens skriva hur mkt mina våra utgifter är varje månad, men det är bra mkt mer än er bruttolön 🫣
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I bet!

We'd have a bit of extra money from selling off things (since I am not paying to move all my shit cross the Atlantic) to help tide things over, but I wanted to get a feel for the worst case, if we somehow didn't have that and it takes a while for her to find a job.
Though we also don't have little kids so that's certainly a plus.
 
Depending on where you settle, the public transportation may or may not be good. You will propbabaly have buses, but if you live in a more rural place, maybe you will have 1 bus per hour during daytime if even that. If you live in a city, well, then you should have much better transportation options.

If you have to buy a car, then be advised that they are quite expensive if you are buying newer ones (When I bough my car last year, a 2021-model Volkswagen T-Roc that had only done 25000 KM, I ended up paying slight more than 200 000 SEK for it. Sure you could get a 10+ year old beaten up car with loads of miles on it for maybe 70 000, but then you would have to budget for paying a mechanic a lot of money, as things would probably break. Add expensive insurance and prices for fuel... Like 95 octane gasoline costs at the moment about 16 SEK/Liter. I think when it was as its most expensive it was 23 SEK/liter...
 
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