In Spain, access to housing is so complicated due to rising prices that young people are choosing to migrate to other European countries in search of better salaries that will allow them to save money. One of these countries is Norway, where the average salary is 62,070 gross crowns per month in 2025 (approximately 6,000 euros at the exchange rate), according to the country’s statistical office, Statistics Norway. Although salaries are higher, the standard of living is also higher, making many wonder if they can really save money.
Rocío Berlanga is a woman from Malaga who works as a waitress in the city of Tromsø and explains that working in Norway saves 1,500 euros every month. “I am saving at least 1,500 euros per month. It is more than the entire salary I had in Spain,” he says.
Although he points out that he normally earns about 3,000 euros per month, there are times where the salary is higher. “Here I have managed to earn almost 4,000 euros in one month,” he exclaims.
How much does it cost to live in Norway
Rocío admits that life in Norway “is more expensive”, as well as going out and food, although there is an exception and that is rent. For housing he pays 680 euros with “expenses included such as electricity, water, Wi-Fi, garbage, everything,” in a shared house with three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a kitchen and a large living room.
In the supermarket “I don’t spend more than 300 euros a month at the exchange rate,” he says, although meat, chicken or salmon are expensive. He says that to save he does not have to tighten his belt, because he recognizes that he does not deprive himself of anything. He summarizes that between housing and food he spends “about 1,000 euros a month, rounding up.”
To this add fixed expenses such as 45 euros for the gym and 22 for the monthly bus ticket. Going out and having a drink costs between 10 and 15 euros and dinners can cost between 25 and 80 euros.
In short, of those 3,000 euros that you earn in a normal month, you have to remove 1,000 for housing and food, about 100 for gym, bus and “four nonsense” (small day-to-day expenses), between 300 and 400 for leisure and between 200 and 300 for shopping (that’s what it says on the video labels). In this way, with its own figures, the savings are between 1,200 and 1,400 euros, below the minimum of 1,500 that is repeated twice.
These are amounts similar to those of other Spaniards who have already shared their experience, such as Aaron, who works in restaurants and saves between 1,100 and 1,300 euros per month, or Inma, who together with her partner saved 10,000 euros in three months.
“It’s very cold, I’m very far away.”
Rocío also talks about the price you have to pay for being away from home. “So yes, it is very cold, I am very far away, I miss my people” and adds that “there are days when I say, what am I doing here?”
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Despite this, he compares life now in Norway with Spain and admits that it is better now. “When I was in Spain, I couldn’t do all these things that I do now,” and from that stage he says that he had no money, no time, no desire. For this reason, he ends by saying that “it pays off. It is hard, but in four months you are able to save what you are not going to save in Spain in a year.”