Prices

One of the biggest shocks a person gets upon their first visit to Norway is not the jaw dropping beauty of the land, but the price they must pay to be there.  This reality slaps one in the face in the airport even before stepping foot on Norwegian soil.  A small bottle of water, the kind we Americans are used to buying in bulk at Costco and paying less than four dollars a case for, costs a whopping seven dollars for just one bottle in Norway.  Of course, that’s the airport price.  At regular stores it’s only about five bucks a bottle.  It often takes the fun out of being there for a budget minded person like myself, if I must think about the cost of things, so I usually don’t.  I stopped doing the Norwegian kroner to American dollar conversion long ago, as I’ve learned, when we are there, to just buy only the things we absolutely need, and forget about how much it costs.

But still, when our toilet seat cracked and we needed to replace it, I couldn’t help but do the conversion.  For just the ordinary run-of-the-mill plastic toilet seat, it set us back $125.  I was thinking they could have embedded a little gold around the rim for that price.  It was hard to sleep that night.  As was the night we took our car in for an oil change and it cost $300.

The price of food in Norway runs three to four times more than what we pay in America.  Most of their food is imported, so their 300% import tax is what drives those prices up.  Norwegian made food, however, is much more affordable, assuming you like the kinds of things they eat.  Dairy items are considered a necessity so they are heavily subsidized and only cost about double what we pay in America. 

Organic foods have recently been introduced in Norway, and they too are heavily subsidized because they believe they are better for people and the environment, so organic foods cost exactly the same as non-organic foods.  I found this to be my only joy in grocery shopping as I’m used to paying more for organic food in America.  I wish our government would stop subsidizing corn farmers and start subsidizing organic farmers.  Strange priorities we have here.

It’s hard to pay over four dollars for a can of beans in Norway, but that’s what it costs.  We spend about three thousand dollars a month on food when we are there, but some of that is because the value of the dollar is so low.  The “usual” exchange rate is about seven Norwegian kroner to the dollar, but the past few years we could only buy five kroner with one dollar, so the 35 kroner loaf of bread went from costing five dollars to seven.  

So it’s certainly not cheap visiting Norway, but as the ultimate consolation prize – taking in the beauty of their land is free.