Cashless Sweden Pt. 2

I've posted a few times in the past about the move away from cash in Swedish society. It is harder and harder to spend our kronor these days. The airport and Stockholm city center are still cash-friendly, but it isn't easy to spend money in the archipelago.

This article from the Guardian shows very clearly how efficiently cash has been left behind in favor of digital alternatives, for better or worse.

Cash has been replaced by credit cards, of course, but also Swish, a payment system which links one's bank account, allowing super-simple transfer of sums back and forth. It's become a verb now: to 'swish' someone a few kronor.

Those of us without national ID numbers, though, can't register for Swish. I still havehope there will be some way for us to be part of the Swish system once we start spending more time in Sweden this summer!

I will keep my readers informed on how I get on.

Our summer plans

It's now the home stretch of our move from London. In early April, the movers will be picking up our goods and sending most of them to the US. Then we'll be on Aspö for at least the next five months. Bliss.

We will be sending a few things to Sweden as well. It's been an interesting calculation because we want to take advantage of bringing lots of goodies to the house. On the other hand, we don't have that much room in our stuga!

The other calculation is that we're going to be living differently this summer. Living there for a number of months rather than vacationing for a couple of weeks means we'll need different clothes, different food, different priorities in how we will spend our time.

I will be writing more in the next few months about the move, and how we adjust to a full-time Swedish life. Stay tuned!

February's weather

It was very slowly warming in February. We are looking forward to a surge in warmth in March!

The wind gauge isn't working, I believe it's a casualty of the huge storm we suffered in January. I also don't believe the rain gauge is completely accurate, either. I've seen a few days of snow lately, which isn't being measured fully. We can use all of the precipitation we can get!