I’m not a fan of shopping. I didn’t like it much in London, but here, in Skellefteå, I hate it.
It is mostly my own fault. We chose to live 20 km from our nearest small shop, and 60 km to the nearest supermarket. Our apartment in London was a 30-second stagger away from the nearest booze shop. Here, our nearest Systembolaget is a 90-minute round trip.
Our remote location also means we can’t enjoy one of the great modern conveniences - supermarket deliveries. Never mind lugging great loads of washing powder and cat food home from the shops, just have it delivered. How I miss that from our London days.
Shopping habits are different, too. Not many Skellefteå people do big shops every two weeks, as we used to do in the UK. Most shoppers here buy around 10–20 items each time.
Even the conveyor belts are much shorter and narrower than their UK equivalents. Supermarket staff look at our gargantuan 3,000 kronor hauls with amazement - are we settling in for the apocalypse?
The main irritation is the terrible state of the fruit and vegetables at supermarkets - we regularly find rotting peppers, carrots, or oranges in bags of produce. I thought it might be just a northern Swedish problem but, according to friends down south, fruit and vegetables are pretty awful there, too.
When we arrived our biggest issue with Swedish shopping was the prices. Everything was more expensive in Norrland. But London prices have caught up over the last few years, although the high price in Skellefteå of staples such as potatoes, meat and lettuce still baffles me.
For a while we turned to internet shopping in order to reduce our household costs. We saved 50 percent on buying a cooker from Germany, and 75 percent on buying new spectacles from the UK (and, yes, that includes the crazy customs charges).
And here comes one of the biggest surprises about life in Skellefteå. We tried to share these money-saving tips with our Swedish friends. But they couldn’t care less.
Our Skellefteå friends have no interest in our tales of saving money. Their eyes glaze over, their attention wanders, and they begin to look uncomfortable, as if we were speaking openly of our love for swingers' parties. Why is this? Are their lives really so comfortable that they have no need to save money now and again? Or is it because they find talking about money to be distasteful?
Any ideas?
This is a column. The views are the writer's own.