Expat_in_Norway

Norway, on the West Coast. I paid 2.8 million NOK for a 91 sq. m. apartment with 2 bedrooms. About 4 times salary. So that's about £265k now, £320k at the time - the krone has tanked against the pound. The most interesting point about Norway is that you can deduct debt interest from your gross income before tax is calculated.

Oslo no longer world's most expensive city I saw this article while browsing the news in Norway. http://www.thelocal.no/20140128/oslo-usurped-by-london-to

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/chris-reynolds-briefly-becomes-worlds-richest-person-after-paypal-credits-him-with-92-quadrillion-8716484.html Chris Reynolds became one thousand times wealthier than the total combined GDP of the whole planet

I'm quite familiar with 25% VAT here in Norway!

Where would you be based? Costs are different on the coast, than say in Oslo. I've lived in Norway for 3 years now. Some things have been brilliant - I live somewhere where I can snowboard in May and go to the beach on the same weekend. I'm much healthier and less stressed. Career-wise it's been more my thing than the UK - people are direct, have low tolerance for bulls**t, and true expertise / engineering is valued. I'm able to save well in Norway rather than just 'get by'. Downsides are unimaginative food, and how difficult it can be to get 'accepted' by the locals. But that depends also on your personality and lifestyle preferences. I would suggest making the choice based partly on an understanding of what matters most to you in life. Happy to answer any questions!

Mostly because without "growth" the debt burden increases rather than diminishes. Loss of growth simply exposes the fundamental flaw in the entire system (that the debt can never be repaid).

Zero. In Norway we only have electricity, not gas. I didn't vote because you didn't provide the option of 'none'.

I'm in Norway and all my cash savings (non-gold) are in NOK in a regional (locally owned) bank. I definitely feel a lot safer than in I would in £sterling. But I was interested to read that Norway has absolutely zero gold reserves (http://www.norges-bank.no/en/faq/gold/), and I'm wondering if they'll regret that decision one day. Their sovereign wealth fund has worked out like a dream so far, but what if they've simply swapped their oil of bits of paper?

Brilliant.

Wouldn't that make for a nice summer? Buy some get some free in Autumn

Perhaps I'm simply uninformed in finance-speak, but what's a "future"? If it's a 'projection' then it sounds to me to be just a guess. Which begins to sound like a 'financial instrument' (a term which makes me instantly recoil and want to run around the room shouting 'bullsh*t monkeys!') and not gold at all. Have I spent too long following this site and become overly cynical? The gold price itself just correct back a few days of minor increases - no major plunge in real gold, at least yet. If real gold goes down, I'm happy because I can buy more for less. If it goes up, I'm happy because what I have already is more valuable.

Just in the name of "balanced reporting" UK public sector borrowing falls back in May* http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-13855098 *excluding the cost of bank bail-outs and other interventions

Cool - I'm from Edinburgh (though I was in the Midlands before I came here). Love living in Scotland too, will maybe move back one day, but I want to see how things go in the UK first. I like it here at the moment. Actually I came over with work already, so was quite lucky (a big UK company in the aerospace and marine industry). After a year I transitioned to a Norwegian contract ("going local"). I'm working more and more with software now rather than just electronics. Salaries are about double, as are costs. I'm taxed at 32%, VAT is 25%. Cars and beer are the biggest difference (a beer is £7-10, a car is at least 3 times the UK price). But on balance, I feel I have a more comfortable life here.

Like me, now set up in Norway (I'm 27). With my engineering background in electronics, it was relatively easy to get an indefinite residence permit. Time will tell if I've hedged my bets right that this will be a good place to see through the significant changes coming. So far I feel safer outside Britain, and safer outside the EU. My standard of living is much better than it was working in the Midlands, and I like the tolerant society where people respect each other more. People here seem to appreciate that hyping cheap gimmicks doesn't progress society.

Seth Godin has a lot of interesting ideas (check his videos on TED.com for example), but he recently posted a couple of blog entries that might be appreciated on this forum: How to buy a house The coming melt down in higher education

Quite long (economic discussion starts about 10 minutes in) but interesting... * public sector jobs grew 16% in the last 10 years (compared with 4% for private sector) * the NHS is the 3rd biggest employer in the world * 50% of new graduates go into the public sector * by weight, a Rolls-Royce jet engine is worth 6 times more than silver. By weight, a car is worth the same as a hamburger. * every $1 of high value manufacturing creates opportunities for 90 cents of service revenues * over the last 4 days, China consumed as much steel as the UK produces in a year (1.3 billion people, like "Japan on steroids") * we should expect a profound impact on what we can pay ourselves * less than 10% of the revenues of the UK's top companies come from the domestic market

I always have a good chuckle when people complain about drinks prices in the UK. Here in Norway, expect 65 Kr (£7) for a pint in a pub. Add another £2 if you're in Oslo Last time I was back over, I bought a whole table of people a drink for less than two beers would be here (that was fun). Nevermind, the way the UK is going, you're going to have Scandinavian prices with none of the social benefits. I'm in no hurry to come back!

Thanks for the replies - here are some answers to the questions: >>What do they say rates will rise to? They didn't, and there was no source. But the report was written by our Director of Financial Communications and distributed company-wide. I expect he will have done his homework (company has no debt and large cash reserves, so credible I think). >>Do companies generally tell their employees that rates seem set to rise? I can only speak for where I am, but the message we consistently get is that the reported recovery in the press is not what is being experienced in industry and all our business changes at the moment reflect this. >>Did you mean Deutsche Bank and UBS? Yes, again no source, but reported as "market rumours". >>Not sure about the UK doing so The report said "regulators in the UK, EU, and US have all made similar commitments that they will sacrifice growth if necessary to get control of inflationary pressures." And about life in Norway..... >>Have you bought? I'm still renting and happy that way. I like being flexible with location, and plan to try e.g. Switzerland/Belgium next, in a few years. These are strange times, I'm still young (27), and I think the western world is going to change dramatically in my lifetime (aging population followed by population collapse; energy crisis, debt crisis, social and cultural identity crisis). Locational flexibility will be increasingly important professionally while oil still supports globalisation. Also not all countries I'm thinking of trying have the house ownership obsession. House prices here in Norway aren't silly - £160k for this one (cheaper if you move out of the city). Oslo will be more, but this just serves to confirm the rediculousness of the situation in the UK, because Norway is one of the most prosperous and expensive countries (£6-7 for a beer in pub). Transaction costs (buying and selling fees) are high - expect £15k fees to buy (and later sell) a £120k flat. But unlike the UK, the Norwegian government includes house prices in their inflation measures and set rates accordingly. >>How much is tax on income? Expect about 37% for a 400,000-500,000 Kr salary. That kind of salary would be about a £20-30k type of job in the UK. The more you earn the more tax you pay, and they even tax wealth and not just growth. They have a strange policy where you pay less tax if you have high absolute interest payments on debt (e.g. a mortgage). >>What interest do you earn? Haven't checked recently, but in July it was about 1.5% (reflecting globally poor rates) for a current account. I'm still learning how to get the best returns here.

We had an interesting assessment of the ongoing recession (not confidential company information) in a newsletter inside the company I work for (a FTSE 100 firm that is not in the services or financial sectors). The main points were: - cost of oil continuing to set record highs and inflation is a major threat - western governments will sacrifice growth if necessary to control inflation - rates seem set to rise over the next few months - specifically stated "more worries for the housing sector" - IMF study suggests eventual bank losses may be double those already written off ($945bn vs $400bn so far) - watch UBS and Deutch Bank - continued stockmarket volatility likely with further deterioration On this cheerful note, I am announcing my first post from the comfortable shores of Norway (where I recently relocated to and will be hoping to escape from the decline of Britain).