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My name is Sondre Pettersen. I work as an incident response analyst, making $78,000 a year, or 740,000 Norwegian kroner, living in Oslo, Norway. I'm going to share all my finances, from what I spend on bills to what I have invested, and where all my money actually goes. This is the paycheck. I work as an incident response analyst, and what that entails is that I look at incoming alerts and I dig in the logs to find out what has actually happened. So my base salary is $74,700. I got an annual bonus of between $3,100 and $3,700 a year. In total, that leaves my annual salary between $78,000 and $79,000.
I also get employer stock purchasing program, where I can buy stocks at the company at a 25% discount once a year, and that is paid by an interest-free salary advance. So my pretax monthly salary is $6,225. I pay $1,380 in taxes each month. If I didn't have a mortgage or student loans, I would have paid $1,700 in taxes each month, and that is because we get a 22% tax deduction on any interest we pay on debt here in Norway. I also pay $71 for benefits per paycheck. That includes $31 for my preferential mortgage I get from my employer, uh $9 for my employer-paid mobile plan, and $31 for my comprehensive group insurance. This includes health insurance, travel insurance,
life risk insurance, occupational injury insurance, and leisure injury insurance. So some of the perks at my job is that I get financial counseling. I get a lower interest rate mortgage through my employer, uh subject to tax. There's a subsidized canteen. I pay roughly $5 a day for lunch, uh but it can vary. The food is very great. Uh the canteen was just nominated a My favorite one is the salad bar where they have salads topped with animal and non-animal protein, which also varies can be chicken or tofu or cheese and whatever. And that is my go-to. I also get a discounted insurance for any other insurances I might need like car insurance, household insurance, etc. I also get a higher interest rate in my savings account.
Right now it's 4.3% My employer pays 7% of my pre-tax income into the pension scheme a year. During the summer we have shorter working week down to 35 hours a week starting in May all the way through August. We also get a 20% discount on gym membership. We also have company cabins all around Norway but also abroad for us to rent for cheap. I work 40 hours a week but I get paid for 37.5 hours a week because I have a 30-minute unpaid lunch break every day. So I work in the office 5 days a week but if anything comes up I can work from home if I need to. I have flexible working hours but I have mandatory presence between 9:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. In Norway we have 25 statutory vacation days
and on top of that I get three extra days through my employer. I live in an area called Grunerlokka in Oslo and I live in a one bedroom apartment. I bought my apartment. I paid $465,000 for it. My mortgage runs for 30 years and my interest rate right now is 4.29%. My down payment was $50,000 and my mortgage is $2,060 per month. So the minimum deposits used to be 15% but it recently changed to 10% which allowed me to buy this apartment. I saved the money for the deposit by working since high school and also through my internships during my studies and working besides studying. I pay $496 a month in building amenity fees, which cover heating, water, maintenance. For utilities, I pay $57 a
month, uh $32 of which are my electrical bill and $25 in which are streaming services. Of the $25, I pay $15 a month for Spotify and $10 covers my cloud storage and AI subscription. I live by myself, so I cover all the expenses related to owning and maintaining my apartments. Hi, welcome to my apartment. In here, we go straight to the living room. This is where I will sit down to watch TV or listen to my music. Doubles as dining room. Over in this nook, I also have my work-from-home setup, gaming setup, computer stuff. Welcome to my kitchen. It's not that big, but it's sufficient for me. It has an oven,
microwave, fridge and freezer, also a dishwasher. Yeah, it's sufficient for my cooking. If you turn around in the kitchen, you will see my bedroom. Not the biggest, but it has a nice big bed and a lot of storage for my clothes. I got this nice shelf from IKEA, which helps me organize all my sunglasses and watches. And speaking of watches, this Casio Oceanus. It's only made and sold in Japan. Really cool, so I got it when I was there and whenever I wear it, I think about all the great turns I made skiing there.
Another one I like is this old Seiko. I got it from my late grandfather, so that's special to me. Yeah, finally, nothing special, my Casio for when I'm working out or running. I just use it to keep track of time or when I'm doing something where I don't want to uh break any of my other watches. This can handle everything else. Something that's important to me is my music, so I bought these nice speakers. They were around $420 I think. My record player I've had for a long time. I think it was $120. I also got a TV uh second hand for $300 I think it was. TV stand IKEA $220. I got uh my PlayStation 2 which I been meaning to play. I brought it the last time I was home in Stavanger. This couch I got for free. It used to belong to my
grandparents. For my setup I wanted it quite big and spacious because I spend a lot of time here. This chair was free from this second hand uh marketplace. So from the hallway we can uh open this door and enter the bathroom. Quite small but it has an in-unit washing machine which I greatly appreciate it. There's not that much to say about it. A shower, toilet and uh for one person. I think I get good value uh but I've been debating this uh cuz I've talked to people that pay um way less but in rent uh than me, but I also talked to some who pay the same or maybe even higher to rent uh similar apartment. So I think it's
fair, but it's also really nice just to own my own place. So I think that makes it worth it. I used to live with seven people, so it has taken some getting used to living alone, but um I mostly enjoy it still. I spend a lot of time out of the apartment, so getting home to a quiet uh quiet places is nice to relax and unwind I think. So I budget around $32 a month uh between single ride bus tickets and city bikes. I don't own a car. It would be expensive and also impractical here in Oslo to have one. Uh so I think I'm better off without it. I can bike to work in 10 minutes and there's also lots of stuff to do here when I come home after work. A car to me is a depreciating asset, if you will, and also it's impractical with
parking around Oslo, especially anything close to my apartment. I have some friends that have cars, but they don't live in Oslo. And none of my friends in Oslo have a car. But when I moved in, for example, and had to move big furniture, I rented a car through like a ride-sharing application. They have cars all around the city and some are really close to my apartment, so it's very easy for me to rent a car and pick up whatever I need. And so there are a lot of tolls in Oslo, but they don't apply to me as I don't have a car. Parking is also expensive here in the city. If you have a fossil fueled car, you would pay $405 every year for parking.
However, if you have an electric car, the same parking would cost $130. So the monthly bus pass is $70 a month. However, I don't buy it because I don't feel like I get the value out of it. But if I know that within a month I'm going to be taking the bus a lot, then I will buy it. I think the price for transportation is fair because you can go a lot of places in Oslo. Also, starting in November, the price will be reduced to around $50 as a means to get more people to use it. But it's a temporary thing, so hopefully it's a success and it will be a permanent thing after a while. I do budget consciously for my food. I use a budgeting app to help me keep track of my expenses. In total, I budget around $507 for food. That includes $295 from
groceries and about $100 for eating out. I also spend $112 at work in the canteen. This could be more because I also have the option to eat dinner there after work as well sometimes. I very rarely eat out. I usually try to cook at home by meal prepping, but if I have a really busy week, like the last few weeks I've been really busy, so then I've eaten at work in the cantina. And then I could get the dinner for around $4 for leftover food from the lunch, which I think is a good deal. I never order delivery usually because it's just so expensive. If I ever do eat out, it would be maybe $20 for like a fast food meal or up to $30 $35 for a sit-down restaurant. So for meal planning, I'm quite lazy in the kitchen,
so I will let my AI agent plan my weekly meal plan. And then I will of course edit it, but I have it connected to the same grocery app, so it will create the shopping list for me and tell me where to go shopping. So I usually split my shopping between multiple shops because I live in between them and I go to whichever is cheapest. And I have an app which tells me which grocery store is the cheapest based on my grocery shopping list. So now we go back from shopping, grocery shopping. I got a bottle of Coke. This bottle cost 32.50 kroners, which is $3.43. Additionally, we paid 3 kroners or 32 cents for the plastic bottle itself.
This will be given back to us once we return the bottle to the shop. We got some bread, $1.89. We also got some jasmine rice, $4.37. So this bag is 2 kg, so for 1 kg of rice it will be $2.18. And then some milk. This is 1.75 L and in US dollars that is $3.31. And then a dozen of eggs, $4.52. All in all this was $17.83. Right now I have about $210 uh for my fun funds or my carefree spending money. And whatever is left of that at the end of the month gets saved or invested. So I usually go out clubbing or to the bars around twice a month, um which is way less than when I used to be a student. Um but it would cost me maybe $100 a month for that. I have several hobbies. Um I like to play tennis, paddle. I like to go for a run.
During the winter time, I really enjoy skiing, both downhill and also ski touring where I walk up the mountain and then go skiing down. Skiing is my most expensive hobby, I would say. A weekend trip skiing could cost anywhere between $200 to $400 maybe. The season pass at my local ski resort is around $30 a month. And equipment, I think I've spent up to $5,000 in the last seven or eight years or so. This year, I bought these new bindings which were really expensive. Um $1,000 because the bindings I used to have were uh getting really old and I kept ejecting from the skis when I didn't want to. So I wanted some bindings
to really keep in place uh both for uphill and downhill. And I can bring them on like a trip to Japan. I can use them both inbound and also off-piste uh out of bounds. These are my ski touring boots. They were the only ones uh in the shop I went to that fit me. They don't weigh too much uh which is important when you're going to be climbing 3,000 vertical feet or more. They were expensive. They were $800 I think. So all in all, my skis, bindings, and boots $2,400 I would say. So it's an expensive hobby. And then that's just the equipment and then you have to uh spend money to go skiing, but it's fun. It's worth it. I also pay $40 a month to avoid being bald.
Uh unfortunately I uh inherited some bad genes from my dad. So I pay $30 a month for minoxidil, which is uh like a serum I rub in my scalp. And then $10 for um some medication in order to have my hair not fall out. To me that is worth it because I don't want to be in my early mid 20s being bald. So this was me when I first started in medication thinning quite badly. This was before I started not looking that great. Especially with wet hair. And this was me one and a half years on the medication. Very happy with how it turned out. So I pay $0 for healthcare. It is 100% funded by the National Social Security Scheme here in Norway. If I go see a
doctor for any reason, I will pay $25 each time out of pocket. This amount is capped at $330 a year. And it also covers medicine. So I take vitamin D supplements because here in Norway it gets very dark during the winter period. And I also take omega-3 supplements because fish hair is quite expensive even though we have a lot of it. And I will spend around $12 a month on those supplements. My dentist appointments cost me around uh $20 but they are heavily subsidized for young adults. So in total my monthly savings is around $1,000. When I get my monthly salary, I have an automatic transfer setup of $400 which is invested automatically into my index funds. But I also try to save whatever is left of my budget within the
month, which can be up to $600. And I will save that split between my emergency fund and index funds. In stocks, I have $3,700 and in my index funds, I have $14,000. For my pension, my employer is saving for me. They pay 7% of my pre-tax income, and which equates to $5,230 a year. And it is 100% employer-funded, meaning I don't have to save anything myself or match it in any way. So I have one credit card. It's free. There aren't any perks to using it, but I need it in case I want to rent a car abroad for the deposit. That's the only reason I have it really. I have received student loans for 6 years, five of which were for my master's degree, which means I have $88,000 in student loans. However, since I've now finished my degree, the
government will pay 40% of my student loans for me. So I am left with $53,000 in student loans to pay back. So I will start paying back my student loans from January 2027. And the interest rate on the student loans is a variable 4.6%, which equates to I think I will pay around $400 a month in student loans. In Norway, a pint of lager is usually $10 to $12 if you go to the bar, but then you usually get 4 dl. I don't have a car, but a gallon of petrol costs approximately $11.8. And a gallon of diesel costs approximately $11.17.
A Big Mac costs between $8.05 and $8.65. A takeaway coffee could run you between $3.50 and $7. A cinema ticket will usually cost between $15 and $22. An unlimited mobile plan will cost 38 and 55 US dollars. A monthly broadband bill is between uh on average 45 to 75 dollars. In Norway we have something called the Sovereign Wealth Fund. It acts as our whole country's savings account. It is made up of surplus from our oil industry. It invests in real estate, stocks, and bonds globally uh among other things. We can use a part of the revenue from it every year to fund our welfare and infrastructure projects etc.
Uh but majority of it is saved for our future generations to come. Every citizen we get around 385,000 dollars. I consider myself reasonably financially disciplined. I try to only buy things I really need and really want. I try to avoid buying uh things of impulse. If I think I want something or need something I will wait maybe a week or two and then decide if I still need or want it. Usually that filters out a lot of bad purchases. I don't really have a financial goal. I just want to save up as much money as possible I guess in order to live and use it however I want to in the future. In terms of retiring I don't need to be
retired super early. If I can have a few years off that would be great but uh it's not something that I'm working towards. Talking about your salary is kind of a taboo in Norway a little bit but uh I think maybe with the younger generation that we talk about it a bit more at least I do with my friends. In terms of my salary I'm um really happy where I'm right now. I don't have uh salary expectations or like a specific number in the future that I want to hit. As much of a cliché it is it's for me it's uh the work I do and the people I work with are more important. For me, buying an apartment was a big financial goal for me for a long time. So I'm really happy that I've been able to do it. So I haven't set my mind on
anything else right now.
