Poor, poor students – another of my social experiments

Every year when the fall semester starts here in Sweden, the students start complaining that they don’t get enough money and when I say get I kind of mean get. For you who don’t know Sweden a student receive 699sek and can borrow 15131sek per week. As studying at University in Sweden is free, this money is for paying your bills, school materials, food and anything else you might want.

Every year when the fall semester starts here in Sweden I find myself annoyed with the students for complaining about the lack of money that they have. I think they should see it as a healthy exercise in how to handle money, make a budget and live by it, plan your shopping ahead, and maybe even find a job on the side to ensure that they receive extra money to pay for the things that they want that isn’t a part of what one need on a monthly basis.

I read somewhere that “You don’t really know someone until you walked a mile in their shoes.”. I was a student back in the days (2002-2005) however I wasn’t a student in Sweden so I can’t really say that I know their situation thus time to walk a mile in theirs shoes, in a way.

During the month of May I will adapt my budget to that of a student, with some cheating of course since I still have to pay the full amount of my rent even though you would never be able to live here as a student. That is one of the benefits of educating one self, isn’t it? You go through a few years of no money really to enable yourself to get a good job that pay you a salary so that you can have a good life.

Based on the weekly amount mentioned above and assuming each month has four weeks, a student in Sweden have 8920sek per month to spend. The Swedish Consumer agency have the following recommendations on what you need to survive each month;

• Food 1670sek
• Clothes and shoes 620sek
• Spare time and play 630sek
• Cellphone 180sek
• Hygien 460sek

Then of course you need somewhere to live, and I have been trying to google information on an average rent for a student here in Malmö where I live, I couldn’t find any information on that. What I did find was an overall average that says 3500 to 3900sek with rent 10 months out of 12. I also calculated the percentage of my actual rent compared to my monthly income and that gave me a rent of 2850sek per month if I was on student income. I’m pretty sure I will be told of if I use that amount in my budget as it is probably impossible to find a place to live for that, so I have decided to put 4000sek in my budget.

I don’t know if students have special student prices for insurance and power, it might be I still have to pay what I pay though so that goes into my budget as well, thus for housing;

• Rent 4000sek
• Insurance 208sek
• Power 206sek

I haven’t included the cost of books, paper and pens in this budget as I make it easy for myself and say that in May all of this has already been purchased (just one of all the liberties I take). I also have items in my normal budget that I don’t include such as the repayment I do of my already existing student loan, my monthly pass for the train to CPH, cleaning lady etc since I wouldn’t have these costs if I was a student.

Thus, when all the above is counted I have 945sek left that should cover any type of travel I want to do, cigarettes, alcohol, the movies and my broadband connection. I also cheat a bit on the food budget as I get lunch at work everyday, that is paid for out of my salary so thinking that I need to make some adjustment for that “pretending” that I bring a lunch package with me everyday for lets say 20sek a day.

I do realize that this social experiment will hamper my social life a little (I’m sorry miss Legal but there wont be any sushi dinners for the month of may, picnic in the park maybe?) and I hope that my friends will show me some understanding. My Salary hit my account on the 27th of April and that is the day the experiment will start. Wish me luck!

Another try at what we think might be Fish and Chix – Streckers instead Fish n’ Chips

Let me start out by saying that I am dead tired and wish I was in bed right now, but after last weeks delay by a whole day I do not dare to do it again. Da Teacher will most likely hunt me down and do evil things to me if I do, so here goes;

Todays Fellow Judges;

• The ever-present Mr Grumpy
• The for ever correcting Da Teacher
• And the lovely Miss Legal

Last week when we went to The Irish Rover for Fish n’ Chips we walked by a place that looked exactly like the Fish and Chix place that we tried to visit in Kongens Nytorv but was closed. The funny part being that the square we found this place in is called Nytorv (without the Kongens before) so we figured this might be the place. Thus we took aim for todays Fish n’ Chip session, but alas it does not seem to be meant to be. This after some confusion as there is one bar called Charlies (where me and Miss Legal conducted todays warm-up session) and one bar called Charlie Scott’s (where Mr Grumpy and Da Teacher conducted their warm-up session).

The thing was as well, that I did not expect the place to not be open, our guess is that it closed due to the heavy rainfall of today (and every other day this summer), so there was no back-up plan. And yes, one can think that a world city like Copenhagen have an abundance of Fish n’ Chip serving places, this is not true. However Mr Grumpy did save the evening by remembering this place called Streckers, and there we went. It wasn’t until I came home that I realized that a place called Streckers is on the Fish n’ Chips list, give it a couple of minutes more and I realize it is not the same place as we went to today.

The food was quickly served compared to the drinks, there was a promise from the guy behind the bar that someone would come to our table and take the drink order. This did not happen until I accidentally spoke a little bit loudly about the to be or not to be regarding the table service. It seem that the waitress heard my monologue and rushed to the table to take our order. Once that was done, it didn’t take long for the drinks to arrive either.

From the staff and the menu card, we were prepared for the fact that this was to be Danish Fish n’ Chips rather than British (also called classical) Fish n’ Chips.

One example being that it is clearly stated that the sauce is Remoulade rather than Tartare sauce, for this reason the sauce has been graded as sauce. Honesty always work in the end!

The food arrive, and the first comment was “What is that green stuff?”, yes there was salad on the plate, and this is noticed before the thin little chips that very closely resembled McDonald’s fries rather than chips. The lemon that was served on the plate was deemed more likely being the left-over from someones G&T rather than a squeezable lemon that would spread some lemony taste over the fish.

There was no vinegar or ketchup served or offered with the food. We did receive salt and pepper though, very lucky indeed as I, who never puts extra salt on the food, had to salt both the fish and the chips to get some taste.

But in the long run, I should be happy, at least my batter contained some fish! Da Teacher was unlucky enough to receive a plate with a nice chunk of batter, not to bad tasting, but not much fish in it.

The food in it self scored high points today, this might be due to the disappointment of one closed place, the expectation of not being able to eat this weeks ration of F&C and then the excitement of finding a place that serves the same. This combined with the fact that we ate much later today than usually, might have contributed to the upper level scoring of something that is not really F&C. Or we have just lowered our standards since we started this mission.

It might also be that we did not deduct enough points for the blocked ladies toilets that made a trip into the mens room required. There was also the candles that Da Teacher claim being mosquito repellents, I have a cold so I can’t say, Miss Legal tought that they are more like grave candles.

Either way, we have a new second placer on both lists! The magical lists and all other information is just one click away (hint, click on the rating below).