I moved from the US to Sweden after struggling with burnout | Hacker News Reader

I moved from the US to Sweden after struggling with burnout

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51 pointssorenjan101 comments

Not to hate on Sweden at all but these articles always read like they've been written by the country in questions PR arm of government.

I have a couple of friends that moved from the US to Sweden and absolutely hated it and ended up moving back to the US after ~3 years.

My wife worked with a woman that moved to [redacted] from the US and while she was okay with it her husband hated [redacted]. Whereas I, a born and raised Brit, moved from the UK to [redacted] in 2018 and absolutely love it here.

On the flip side I tried living in the US for two years back in my twenties and it was awful. I hated almost every minute of my time there. My sister also has been working in the US for the past 3 years on a work placement and cannot wait to leave in August.

That isn't to say the US is an awful place. It is easily one of my favourite places to go on holiday but I am not compatible with it as a home. Just as [redacted] was not compatible with the husband of my wife's colleague. And Sweden was not compatible with my friends.

In reality these kind of articles are basically worthless as everyone is different. IMHO you can't really learn anything of value from such pieces.

I think a lot of people don't realise the large cultural differences between the US and Europe.

Most Brits (myself included) fall into this due to the lack of language barrier.

In my opinion, British culture aligns better to Europe than the US (for obvious geographical reasons)

I very much agree with this. While [redacted] and the UK don't share a language like the US and UK do I have found the [redacted] and Brits are much more alike than most people realise. Far more so than I found as a Brit and Americans.

Obviously not saying one is better than the other. They're just different and I felt very much the "alien" when in America whereas I felt "at home" in [redacted] in just a few months.

I guess there is a lot of similarities in way of life in the UK and in [redacted]. Healthcare is very similar. Education isn't too different. General support for the social care system is the same. Etc. So while the language is different the overall cultural differences between [redacted] and the UK are tiny having seen it first hand.

Funny story but when I've meet people back in the UK and they learn I moved to [redacted] they always ask how hard I found it and are shocked when I say the [redacted] and the Brits are really similar so it wasn't really hard at all. Some are almost offended by it hah.

You are correct it is a difference rather than an advantage.

Moving to France works well because the French are passionate about their language. Therefore you must learn French to thrive. This can be harder in other European countries where English is spoken so proficiently that learning the native language is difficult to do - and therefore avoided

Speaking of Brits and Swedes:

A stereotypical antipattern:

1. A Swedish girl and a British guy meet and start living together in Sweden. (Yes, somehow, it tends to be that gender config.)

2. Since "everyone in Sweden" speak at least a little English, the guy doesn't bother learning Swedish.

3. The British guy can't get a job since he doesn't speak Swedish.

4. The British guy gets bitter and starts posting in the forums at thelocal.se, (run by bitter UK socialists who went through the same thing and are now super angry at Sweden).

5. The couple breaks up, hopefully before having kids together.

6. ...

Culture clash is real.

The issue here is point #2. We Brits already have a cultural apathy for learning other languages. And as you have said theres enough proficiency in English in Sweeden, that combines to make it easy for English speakers to take the easy option.

I don't understand how you can truly live in a country without speaking the language.

It's likely not just the English speakers - assuming this is the same way as it is in Norway - even if you tried to learn the language, you'll still struggle with the native speakers "just using English as it's more efficient with both being proficient". I witnessed this in the workplace, and I heard plenty of anecdotes from the local college where PhD students struggling with learning Norwegian for the same reason, and last but not least I've done this myself.

I moved to Sweden from the Netherlands - i.e. another Germanic-language country just like (most of) the U.K. - and learned Swedish quite rapidly. I may use a non-Swedish word every now and then for something for which I do not know a Swedish term or where the Swedish term does not cover the concept I'm trying to convey but I do not "just use English" other than with my (Swedish) wife [1] which makes it far easier to join ongoing conversations without causing a stir by using English. Sure, most people speak passable English here but breaking into a conversation in Swedish using another language does tend to break the flow and changes the discourse.

[1] I'm Dutch, she's Swedish/French, when we met she lived in the U.K. and did/does not speak a word of Dutch nor did I speak any Swedish. I learned Swedish by myself but hardly ever use it at home other than when my children have friends over - I speak English with my wife, Dutch with my children and Swedish with the rest. Both children went/go to a French school to make the picture complete.

Can you elaborate on what makes France a good home?

I suspect it's the culture, and work life balance, and possibly good food and drink, and emphasis on small businesses over big chain corporation.

but would love to hear more. I don't like the US for all those reasons and am looking for a new place possibly.

Obviously this is just my personal experience but I just love the mentality of the [redacted].

Work life balance is one. They don't take shit from work and I love it. 2 hour lunch breaks are the norm here for example. The interesting thing is somehow the [redacted] are more productive vs our UK counterparts that work, on average, 7.2 hours more per week than we do. How does that work?!

The general family first attitude I love.

The weather is also a nice bonus. When I pick my kid up from school more often than not one of the other dads will suggest we go play boules (pétanque) for half an hour and just chat about life.

Oh neighbours randomly pop round with extra food or drink they had they thought we might like. I had a neighbour knock at the weekend as they had some Cheddar left over from a party the day before and they know I like Cheddar as a british person so figured I would want it more than they did lmao. Just silly things but it really brings a smile to my face.

Of course some of this is I am just fortunate to live in a nice area with nice people but I lived in a nice area with nice people in the UK too and unless I knew someone quite well they would never pop over with spare cheese, etc. I am sure I could have such an experience in the UK but my 35 years living there I never had it whereas it is just the norm here in [redacted], apparently.

Healthcare is absolutely fucking fantastic too. I had some health issues the past few years after slipping a disc in my low back. I had an MRI within a few days during the height of the pandemic with lockdown in effect. Saw the consultant 10 minutes after the MRI who started me on treatment and it was superb. I compare this to my cousin that needed an MRI for very severe migraines and had to wait 9 weeks for! Also I am always able to get an appointment with my GP the same day (or very worst the next day if I call after lunch for example). Compared to trying to get an appointment with my GP back in the UK it is just so damn easy. I used to get additional stress trying to book a GP appointment when I lived in [redacted].

I could go on but I should mention some not so great things too...

The education system needs reform. It isn't bad but it is dated. They need to move beyond rote memorisation of 500 year old poems every week and embrace a bit more modern technology but...

They have a weird almost fetish like attitude towards no screens for kids. Like I have witnessed teachers and others get giddy with excitement when talking about no screen time. It is very bizarre to me in a world where almost everyone uses a screen for work in some capacity.

Also deliveries here are the absolute worst. I dread having a package delivered by Colissimo or La Poste.

Honestly we only moved because of Brexit but we're very glad we did as it has been wonderful for our family. It was hard with the pandemic as travel was restricted but nobody had an easy time of it during the lockdowns so I can't fault anyone for that.

If you want to chat more feel free to drop me an email [redacted] forwards to my proper address just pop hacker news in the subject so it doesn't get swallowed :)

Edit: Sacré bleu! I almost forgot... I have a fantastic boulangerie just a few minutes walk from my house and that is true of pretty much every house we looked at. Honestly it is quite hard to find a house that doesn't have a boulangerie within a 5 minute walk. At least in all the places we looked which is just outside of [redacted].

One issue is that people who move to other countries almost always settle in major cities. Cities can be great, but they can also be some of the most inhospitable places on Earth no matter what country you are in.

So you are almost always comparing your comfortable home environment (usually suburban in some way) against really urban environments.

And it goes both ways. A French person is going to have as bad a time in D.C. just as much as an American is going to have a bad time moving to Paris. In their respective home countries, neither person would probably prefer the same arrangement for themselves!

> My salary here as an American can feel very low, but I feel wealthy in Sweden. You don't need to make a lot of money to live a good life. Back in the US, I was making $60,000 a year before taxes and that was almost eight years ago. Here, my annual salary is around $45,000 a year before taxes.

I've lived in LA for about 3 years now and I find it fascinating how lackluster the salaries are in this area (for both technical and non-technical roles). $60K isn't even paycheck to paycheck for Burbank. That's just simply not enough to afford basic housing. No wonder people get burned out.

In America, the rat race never ends. It doesn't even pause. The race continues until you die. The system is designed to extract as much value out of employees as possible and as much money out of consumers as possible.

Living a life where one can't even take a pause is incredibly stressful. There is a reason why the FIRE movement is so popular in America. People are sick of living here.

I used to think this, but now I think that, especially given what many immigrants and Americans born into poverty are able to do here, the problem might actually be me, most likely requiring a process of both learning and un-learning.

There is just too much wealth in this country for "rat race" to be a worthwhile way for me to be doing life in the long term.

I've kind of been thinking of it lately as an optimization problem where the rat race is a local maximum and that there are higher local maxima adjacent to rat race that I could get to that I just don't know about yet.

> I used to think this, but now I think that, especially given what many immigrants and Americans born into poverty are able to do here, the problem might actually be me, most likely requiring a process of both learning and un-learning.

This is a good point but is orthogonal to the "rat race". The reason immigrants are succeeding is because they are motivated. America historically self-selected for the motivated by asking people to make perilous journeys and give everything up to start over in a new land. Very few people want to do this.

But, to the "rat race", these same immigrants also hate the American rat race. They ALL want to make the money, invest and retire. Modern day immigrants even go to the extent of making the money and leaving America entirely. They don't want to "live" in this rat race. They want to "work" and get out of here.

> I've kind of been thinking of it lately as an optimization problem where the rat race is a local maximum and that there are higher local maxima adjacent to rat race that I could get to that I just don't know about yet.

Rat race is a local maximum, where you get enough money to not "have to" work ever. The next step is either your own business or FIRE entirely. This is the modern American way.

As an example, if you visit Thailand, you'll see a lot of Americans who own bars, restaurants etc. They made enough money in America to be able to quit the rat race and now are living for cheap while building their assets - except they are doing it in growing Asian countries instead of the midwest.

I looked into the expat thing and concluded that bailing out to a foreign land before exhausting the possibilities here would be a poor decision. A bit like jumping to a full rewrite when a problem arises in a project.

It doesn't have to be a full rewrite. It can just be option if/when you feel like it. Life is long, priorities change.

"what many immigrants and Americans born into poverty are able to do here"

Depends on what "what" means. If it means the high life, "many" is still a tiny fraction. We all want to believe you can hit it big in the USA, but the reality is that, statistically, you won't. Just one of many articles on the subject (and not the most damning that I can remember): https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=466245...

I purposefully leave that vague.

What most people outside of Sweden don't understand is that a young person can work as a waitress, save up money and go backpacking in Thailand.

It's so important to broaden your horizons in your youth, and the Swedish system allows just that.

Can you not do that if you live in any other country?

How much money can the average waiter/waitress save up in most countries?

(I've never worked as one, all I can say is the role has a reputation as being low-paid).

I've never worked as a waiter/waitress in any country. But any developed nation with a fairly decent salary index would support you making enough to backpack in a poor nation like Thailand. The whole idea of backpacking is spending basically nothing.

The internet says $20-30 a day, assuming you go for 30 days, and assuming higher range, that's $900.

I get the impression the role is mostly wages (i.e. hours worked) rather than salary.

The closest I've had specific details of is an ex who did some behind-the-counter stuff in a fast-food place in Davis CA (so not enough to extrapolate from), and that wasn't enough to cover just rent by itself.

Not really, you wouldn't even be able to cover most of your living expenses on that kind of money.

Could a young waitress in Sweden? The author of this article makes it sound like even dual income professionals can barely cover their living expenses.

It's a good question. I don't know for sure but the author claims that is possible in Sweden. It may even be possible in other rich countries but it's becoming increasingly hard in the US, that I can attest.

As an American I don't think that's really that difficult for people here either. Thailand is notoriously a cheap travel destination (once you get there) and YMMV but I'm friends with a lot of waitstaff that make good money including tips (avg. ~60k so maybe they just got lucky) and I live in a medium-sized city.

There are tons of societal and financial problems in the US but you kinda gave a super cheap travel destination as an example.

In this example, is the young person living in their own apartment?

Young people in the US can save up extraordinary amounts of money if they live with their parents or have an affordable roommate situation. And there is a huge US travel industry aimed just at young people.

>Young people in the US can save up extraordinary amounts of money

Can they actually though, at the median? There's always outliers, and the US is the land of uncommon opportunity, aka wealth inequality. Cursory research shows that young people (i.e. Generation Z)[0]:

* Their average salary was $32,500 in 2021

* 46% are living paycheck-to-paycheck

* Nearly 40% have no investments

* They have on average $20,900 in student debt, 13% more than Millennials

* Over a quarter of are not confident that they will be able to retire comfortably

[0] https://finance.yahoo.com/news/gen-z-average-net-worth-22484...

Are there any comparison statistics for Swedish Gen Z?

Aside from student debt, these are all pretty dang good averages for people in their 20s.

Yes. Sweden has a very high rate of single person households. A young person can usually live in their own apartment if they work full time. Probably not in the dead center of a big city, but nearby.

Yes, and that’s absurd. You can be a nurse or a teacher and make almost as much with exponentially more headaches and responsibilities. Or you can just work odd jobs for a few months then take unemployment allowance and go to Thailand. That’s why the inflation is growing like hell, and why it’s so hard to get good service when you need it, and everyone who does anything even remotely relevant is so stressed and burning out. These outdated and spurious socialist concepts are absolutely atrocious.

Yes, how dare they not underpay and overwork their service staff like everywhere else. They might get strange ideas and start believing that a healthier work-stress-leisure balance is possible. What will come next? Holiday days that you are actually allowed to take? Free education? Or, heaven-forbid, free healthcare?

No, no, no. Back in the crab bucket you socialist parasite.

What’s the point of not overworking a waitress and instead put the pressure on those who are doing actually relevant work? There is not a single nurse or doctor I ever met in Sweden who wasn’t overworked, stressed, and underpaid. You can never get more than 10 minutes with a doctor, and never with less than a month in advance. Why? Because hospitals are understaffed because nobody wants to take the responsibility if you can just sit on your ass all day and get paid by försäkringskassan. My kids have been to three different schools and most of the staff is not even trained in education. They literally just hire anyone who is actually willing to do the work because simply put almost nobody cares to take the blow. Plus they are all rude and angry all the time due to stress. But I guess the 19-year old waitress is partying in Thailand so that’s good.

Some parts sounded a bit off until I got to the bit that (combined with a bit of local knowledge about salary levels) made it clear that she is working for a company that offers a "HR person as a service" to other companies, not tech or otherwise especially qualified consulting, as I had somehow assumed. A qualified HR consultant would make a lot more.

I'm happy she likes it here.

A bit surprising to read the comment about shootings in the US, as shooting is increasing a lot in Sweden lately. But I guess things are relative.

I believe we also have a record in bombings. With that said, the grass is always greener in these articles. You can find both ends of the spectrum in most countries depending on where you live.

2022 saw 60 people killed by shootings in sweden, and from my quick googling the rise appears to be gang related. Sweden has 10m people. Meanwhile, Chicago with 2m people had 12 people killed _last weekend_.

I'm gunna go ahead and wager that those Chicago shootings are also gang related.

Increasingly less so. Memorial day weekend had 2 separate fatal shootings in the lake view neighborhood, which is all young rich kids. Perps might have been gang members but victims definitely not.

Clowns like Ja Morant do play a role in this.

There’s no other reason for the rich kids to be swinging guns.

Rich kids aren't swinging guns in Lakeview.

Even if you compare all homicides, Sweden is about 6x safer per capita than the US.

But it's worth pointing out the danger in both is still very, very low. It really shouldn't be a contributing factor about where you live.

Not mass shootings, they're all gangland shootings. I'm not defending them but the US is on a completely different level.

People who want less gun restrictions in Sweden keep bringing up this argument that "the gangs are armed". And yes, they are, but the lunatics are not. Whenever a lunatic has done something in Sweden it has been either with a hatchet, a truck, a knife, a sword. Very rarely with a gun.

Well, also, while there are certainly lots of guns in Sweden, they are mostly long guns. A big reason gun violence is so pervasive in the US is the proliferation of pistols.

It's so much easier to conceal and smuggle handguns so they have an order of magnitude larger "surface area" for danger.

> Not mass shootings, they're all gangland shootings.

That is essentially true in the US as well. Non-gang-related shootings get enormous amounts of attention, but in statistical terms they are next thing to meaningless.

Not that I wouldn't want gangs disarmed and disbanded, I surely do if possible they are dangerous and do terrible things, but mass shootings are not really their thing, the largest chunk of gang violence is inflicted on other gangs.

> Whenever a lunatic has done something in Sweden it has been either with a hatchet, a truck, a knife, a sword. Very rarely with a gun.

That's sure to bring comfort to the victim's family.

"Your son was brutally murdered with a sword. You can be thankful to the government for our strong gun laws that prevented your son from dying from a shooting like it could have happened in the USA".

I get bothered when people dismiss gun violence as gang-related, as if it doesn't matter because the victims are in gangs. We're all human beings, and we all deserve to live. Yes, people involved with gangs, pretty much by definition, are more likely to be a victim at some point, but it doesn't mean we as a society should just dismiss them, like they're meaningless, they all deserved to die. It just seems so heartless.

In the US, it's almost automatic when someone points out all the gun-related deaths: "A large portion of gun deaths are gangs in Chicago!" Probably true, but so what? People are still dying.

Since it mostly affects lower socio-economic classes it is also easier to disregard for those who don't live in those marginalized areas. I absolutely hate it when we as society dismiss increasing deaths from drug overdoses. Sweden and US are both terrible at this, there are lessons to be learned from both Switzerland and Portugal, but no one cares.

The shootings and bombings in Europe go completely ignored in the US press.

A bad year of shootings in Sweden is a bad weekend of gun violence in Texas.

A normal year of shootings in it is a normal day in Texas.

I hear gunshots a few times a month (not always violent, sometimes just drunk partiers who think it's fun. lol, oops accidentally killed a person in their bed). Three murders in one year, on the same corner, two blocks over.

I live in a "nice" part of town. Things are relative indeed.

Also, never lock my doors, never had issues. Neighbors are unfailingly helpful.

Will find people passed out in their cars nearly daily on my way to work, on drugs. If they wake up, they'll mumble politely.

Weekends, roving hordes of motorcyclists - teenagers with dirt bikes and quads - will run up&down the empty streets. Sometimes they hit our street, sometimes not. I'm not making this up. It's fucking mad max.

Trash pickup is excellent, twice a week, large bins. No dog shit anywhere. Very little littler. A few blocks over, somebody dumped some appliances in the creek bed. Free junk drop-off center is two minutes further.

My kids walk everywhere, get coddled and spoiled by their neighbors and strangers constantly. At school, they'll get alice training, you know, teaching toddlers what to do when a gunman enters their classroom.

This country is depraved, a stench is wafting over it.

How difficult is it for an American to move to Sweden to live long term? The author had an employer sponsored visa. Are there other paths?

I don’t know about Sweden, but I think immigration to Europe is easier than immigration to the USA. I recently interviewed with a company in the Netherlands, and immigration was a non-issue. Get job, get residence visa (assuming you aren’t a criminal with a record that shows up in a background check).

Taxes are high in Western Europe, and salary lower than in the USA. That being said, some companies pay wages that are semi-competitive with American wages, and some countries offer a tax advantage for skilled immigrants (in the Netherlands, for qualified immigrants they offer package called the 30% rule, where you don’t pay taxes on 30% of your income & you’re exempt from the wealth tax on assets outside of the Netherlands*)

*don’t quote me on that, do your own research*

Info on the 30% rule in the Netherlands:

https://www.expatica.com/nl/finance/taxes/the-dutch-30-rulin...

From my limited knowledge, I think Switzerland is probably the only country that might be a bit more difficult coming from outside of the EU.

Sweden: For tech workers with reasonable salaries - it's very similar.

There's not that much paperwork for the employer (no lawyers need to be involved on either side, even in small companies the HR people or the CEO/Founder are normally able to handle it on their own without that much pain).

It depends on what you do professionally. Are you a software developer? If so, you're golden to pretty much move anywhere you want.

Anything else and you're SOL

Moved to Sweden from the US ~3 years ago. The most stable path is with an employer-sponsored work visa. Best bet is to interview at a multinational with a presence in Sweden (big companies are more likely to operate in English).

Next best option is to be in a stable relationship with a Swede.

It’s possible to get a visa running your own business, but the wait times for this are long and you need solid documentation that you’ll actually make enough to support yourself/your dependents.

Visas are also available for students and they’re experimenting with a visa for highly skilled job seekers, but these are a bit more limiting in terms of length and what you get access to.

I hate these articles. First, there are plenty of employers in the United States that offer 6 weeks vacation. My last employer had unlimited vacation and you can bet I used at least 6 weeks spread over the course of a year.

Second, you can't just "move" to Europe and get a job without a work visa unless you want to work a crappy cash under the table job. This chicks "partner" was the one who got sponsored because he has a real job and she was able to mooch off of his visa as a partner. The fact is, she wouldn't have been able to move to Sweden without him.

The reality is, without her partner who does the real work she would never be able to relocate abroad.

But yet she's happy.

Honestly, she just sounds like someone who is happier living abroad. I get that but the level of hamstering she does in the article is just cringeworthy and partly the reason I loathe and avoid American expats when I'm abroad.

I hope someday employment will be completely decoupled from the time, so the compensation will be based on impact rather than hours. Some companies claim that only impact matters, although even if you achieve "a week worth" of impact, you are still required to churn the holy 40+ hours.

But if you want to live in cheaper places with jobs where you work less, those are available in the US. And they don't require a master's degree and 2 years on a job market! Especially if you are willing to get paid less for that work life balance.

> My motivation is just so high because I gave up being near my family, higher salaries, the friendliness of Americans, and the amazing nature in the US to move here.

I applaud anyone taking on these big life adventures for fun, and I think Sweden is awesome, but this article is kind of "damning with faint praise". Outside of some pretty fraught financial justification, she is describing a lifestyle that is pretty achievable in the US, and makes a big deal about the sacrifices she is making to achieve it.

The interesting bit here is that the partner got a job in tech "right away" and she had to look for a long time. Without that partner - how much fun would it have been?

Exactly. My wife has two BScs and one MSc and has been unemployed for 7 years.

What field? (Swedish language skills are critical for pretty much all fields except tech).

Education.

Did I miss the part where it says how she actually could legally immigrate to Sweden?

> His company sponsored both of our residencies and work visas, so we had the ability to live and work in Sweden full time. Once we moved here, we went to the immigration and tax agencies and filled out all the paperwork. It took around three months to get everything settled.

I'm not sure if I would put Scandinavia and happiness in the same sentence. Brutal winters, SAD and stuff. Maybe Swedes are happy because they can spend (and afford) 6 weeks of holiday in the south of Spain to cancel out that crap weather. (edited out a part that was factually incorrect)

Whilst we are generalising, why wouldn't we put it in the same sentence? "What Americans Can Learn From Scandinavians, the Happiest People in the World"[0]

0: https://www.thrillist.com/travel/nation/why-scandinavians-ar...

I've researched this issue, the Scandys doth protest too much.

I choose to live in Scotland over many other places in the world. Unbearably hot summer days where you have to avoid being outdoors for the mid afternoon are not my idea of a good time. Factors like holiday entitlements, and cultural norms are far more important than "is it hot outside".

"6 months of total darkness" huh? That's news to all of us that have been there.

Sweden is for sure not the socialist paradise that some think it is. But the Winter in the (relative) South of Sweden are relatively mild and there are always some hours of sun. I live in the North of Sweden (geographically somewhat north of the center) and while the winters are long, there are always some hours of sunlight, often direct sunlight without clouds, reflected by the snow. It's beautiful. The real problem is that the current inflation, recession and increased unemployment, in combination with the previous habit of infinite-time mortgages and policies that favor the non-working elites, are ruining the social contract...

I stand corrected. I experienced the midnight sun there, and assumed it also went dark for an extended period of time as well.

Yes but not in Malmö where she lives. Look at a map.

The Arctic circle is where you get 24 hour night and days. And that is very far north in Sweden.

She lives in Malmö in southern Sweden. Some years they don't even get any meteorological winter at all (5 consecutive days with an average temperature below 0°C). Scandinavia does not have brutal winters thanks to the gulf stream, and the polar night (which is not total darkness) is a few weeks in the sparsely populated area north of the arctic circle.

Ugh.. Then you have winter without the best part of winter: snow.

There's also not that firm belief that cold and dark is bad. You go out on your skidoo, you go cross country skiing, etc etc, and then you return to your cozy home. or go to a sauna.

You drink your fish elixir. You try to prioritize time around the little sunlight there is. Brutal winters are not quite as brutal when you just call em "winter".

Plus dry colds tend to not feel as cold. Ottawa at -10 feels worse than Yellowknife at -25 (imo).

I live in Wisconsin, USA and I always laugh when people talk about how hard the winters are here. 3-4 well-planned layers on your torso and legs, a good pair of wool socks and boots, and a cross-country skiing hobby and you end up anxious that winter won't last long enough. It's the people who stay indoors and don't dress properly for the cold who have a hard time.

Regarding Scandinavia, I suspect the lack of sunlight does add an interesting dimension of toughness to winter that we don't have to deal with here, though.

> It's the people who stay indoors and don't dress properly for the cold who have a hard time.

It's also the people who just don't like the cold. I dress properly, I don't stay indoors, and I hate the cold. It makes just about everything worse for me.

There is crap weather in US too, Minnesota, North Dakota, etc get extremely bad weather, -40C all winter and summer lasts a few months. Sweden at least has the ocean to mellow out the temperate extremes.

1. Dont North of USA also get really cold and dark? My winters in south of Sweden are like -10C max for a day... Not very brutal.

2. Take some Vitamin D and its fine...

3. Dark is cozy too

Sweden is approved the same latitude band as Alaska. Sweden may be warmer thanks to the gulf stream, but its winters are as dark as the darkest you can get in the US.

I live here lol I know what its like

Which of Alaska and Sweden is your "here"? :)

Yeah and times nearing Summer like this is annoying. It is coming to evening or extremely early morning and it is still way too light outside. Just horrible here in Northern Europe...

Really? I just hopped on public transport, and could visit any friend within 20 minutes. Or just suit up and go on a hike. Or maybe take a walk in the exceedingly beautiful city. I never understood this complaint from the naysayers.

Having lived in both places for several years (first couple of years are never a good gauge due to taxes, relocation, visa, acclimatization, bias), I very much prefer the quality of life in Europe. At least California pays well enough to offset the forest smog I guess.

And yes convenient access to other European countries is also a big plus.

>I never understood this complaint from the naysayers.

In the United States, a lot of people act like being outside in 40 degree weather is deadly. I also think Americans are less social, especially as they get older so winters tend to be a lot of sitting inside and watching TV.

It varies for sure. I live in a place with overcast and wet winters and I get SAD really bad if I'm not leaving the house, but do fine when I can get out into nature or spend time with friends.

https://archive.today/cIJOw

Making 45k/yr with a 33% income tax is pretty stressful IMO.

So they don't have disposable income, arent saving for retirement, and can't go to eat at restaurants?

I suppose in the US, when making 60k/yr its pretty similar since 10-30k get eaten up my medical expenses.

> since 10-30k get eaten up my medical expenses.

For the average 30-something? Not even close…

It's not comparable to the US system, the welfare system there (and in most other EU countries) covers a lot of that. Hence the high taxes.

Not Sweden but in the Netherlands the government will cover up to 2/3rd of your rent. Medical insurance idem dito.

Mind you America is THE place to be if you're a rich libertarian asshole but -spoiler alert- most people aren't.

Retirement is baked into the tax system for most countries in Europe. Expenses don't go over 1.5k net for most single people, including rent, utilities and more. That still leaves 1k to use however you want. You want more spending money, find someone to share the costs with.

It's the US that's the outlier in the world, and it does so at the cost of others.

> So they don't have disposable income, arent saving for retirement, and can't go to eat at restaurants?

There's a lot you can do when other expenses aren't eating up your take-home pay. For instance, they mention not having to own a vehicle or drive. Car ownership is a substantial expense in the US[0]. Were it not for Seattle's mostly-passable transit system, my wife and I would be a lot deeper in bills (neither of us drives).

Plus, if everyone around you is earning approximately the same thing, wealth-display-competition just isn't a thing. I know people will scoff at it--"that's what you get for trying to keep up with the Joneses"--but humans are social creatures. We want to be like people who are around us and we want to be around people who are like us. Not having that added stress is freeing. This also makes more room for social and leisure activities that don't involve going out to eat and spending a bunch of money as a result. Thus, society is more geared to providing those activities, instead of a plethora of semi-public spaces that cost money to be in.

0 - Just under $1,000/month, on average: https://www.bts.gov/content/mile-costs-owning-and-operating-...

> So they don't have disposable income, arent saving for retirement, and can't go to eat at restaurants?

What? 45k USD / year amounts to 40,000 SEK per month. A Swede would receive 30,000 SEK after tax on that. The tax percentage mentioned often includes employer's fees, something that ISN'T taxed on the employee's salary.

She pays about 11,000 SEK per month for her apartment. Groceries are 2,000 to 5,000 SEK with 5,000 being relatively high. I've managed 3-4k for most of my life. Less than 2k as a student.

So she has maybe 15,000 SEK left after rent and groceries. Add maybe 2-5k on top of that for various services, public transport, insurance, phone, whatever. Still leaves her with 10,000 SEK, which is a decent amount to save or use for entertainment or whatever.

Additionally, we have both allmän pension which is state funded, and often occupational pension, so retirement is in some sense covered.

If you want examples of what you net for various salaries, you can use this to get an estimate (that is very accurate, within a few 100 SEK). https://rakna.net/berakna/lon-efter-skatt/

The fields from top to bottom are Fiscal Year, Monthly Salary in SEK, what kommun you reside in (approximately equivalent to County), and if you're a member of the church of Sweden (which adds a tiny amount on top of the tax).

Beräkna means calculate, and the result pops up with details below that.

She also has a partner who’s working - I’m sure they live quite comfortably.

If you don't have money left over with a salary like that in Sweden, you are simply bad with money. You should be able to save 1-2k a month easily with a salary like that.

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