Romanian seeking romanians

Hi Catalin!

Welcome to Expat.com

Armand

Bunã seara si tie Sendia

I'm glad to be of any help i can.

Regarding your questions about monthly costs it's hard to give a good estimation, but in general i can tell you this:
- For internet there are a lot of offers and that is not the most expensive part. I don't know if you plan to rent a house, or a flat in block, but many blocs have cabel-tv and internet all together. I just moved to a flat where it's like that, and in this bloc internet is included in the rent. Of course is the lowest speed. But enough for the normal daily internet activities. But if you want something a little faster i know you can get an adsl line for roughly 45 euros a month. That would be an adsl of 2mbit download and 0,5mbit upload. You can also find cheaper also.

- For mobile phone here you can also stipulate a little. There are two major mobile companies in norway trying to be the cheapest. It's OneCall and Talkmore. Besides that is Telenor the main and biggest phone company followed by Netcom. Again here you can have a variety of agreements spawning from 40, 50 euros and up. For 40 euros you can have something like 500minuttes call, 500sms, 500mms, and 500mb of internet data. You see , whats expensive is calling outside norway , and of course surfing internet with your mobile.

- When it's about food that's something which i can tell you is hard to say. From my point of view, it depends on your eating habits. some people must have only good stuff all the time, always making dinner, fresh meat and seafood everyday is not the cheapest. Since you are together with a romanian girl, she may one of them who was brought up with making dinners, not just to have once, but maybe also for two days forward. I would guess that you should at least calculate like 200-300 euros for food, if not more. Here i am not the best one to ask, cause I live alone now, and you can imagine, that often is something fast. I like taking a trip to sweeden and buy stuff i can have in my freezer. It's cheaper in sweeden, and i know there is a lot of debtates regarding if it's cheaper or not. They calculate the drive trip as well. But my experience is that is definitly cheaper. It takes roughly 1,5hours to drive and you can fill up with a lot of freezer stuff. Many , many people do that.  I dont know if you smoke, but tobacco in Norway , has got out of hand. It's crazy how much they try to force people to quit, and now a pack of  20 cigarettes is about 13€. And In sweeden it's almost half the price. I try to get my cigarettes from Sweeden as often as i can, and i can tell i can see the difference in my wallet.

Living outside Oslo, i dont know if it's cheaper if you intent to rent. To buy, is a good idea, but to rent, the prices are really not that much difference. Just think about work situation. If you move to far oslo and work in oslo, it will cost for the monthly train pass, or buss or whatever. I lived for 4 year about 50km from oslo. And i took the train to oslo. It cost me around 320euros just for that. The further you live, the more expensive it will be. Of course you can get a refund when the taxes are calculated. To give you an idea.
320€ * 12 month = 3840€ per year. =  26880 NOK.-
From this i got back 8000 NOK.- (1142€) when the taxes where calculated. 
Living within the Oslo limit, that amount is a lot less. 85€ month for Subway/train/buss/tram within oslo's main border. But of course you wont benefit for the tax refund.

Please keep in mind that my calculation here are bases on an average of 7NOK.- per 1€ . So it may differ depending on the euro rate.

Car, hmm.. another luxury that we are punished to have.
Now, the prices for 95 normal bensin is almost 2€/l, while diesel is a little under. I have a Toyota RAV 4, 2005 modell diesel without particle filter. Cars without partivle filer must pay more tax. I paid 450€ for this year. Besides that of course you must have insurance. That depends. And bying a car, that is a chapter of it's self.

To have an idea:
http://www.finn.no/finn/car/used/browse1
On this page you can choose the type of car you want, and then you will see a little yourself. If you have an idea about what kind of car you want i can find and show you.


Besides that i don't know what to tell you. I guess you could just ask Now i think you have a lot to chew on . Just to mention: I speak romanian, english and norwegian.

Here is my email address as well: ct@catalinux.org

Hey goodygoody,
I'm not a Romanian, but thanks for the info. It will be very useful for me when I get to Norway later. Cheers!!