A money post of mine from 2010 repeated,
with a follow-up, for Friday My Town Shoot Out.
Originally posted on Soaring Through The World, September 12, 2010:
I wonder how many millions ABBA have made since 1976?
Sweden, though member of the European Union, does not use the Euro, but the currency krona (pl. kronor) (SEK). It is sometimes informally referred to in English as the "Swedish crown" (krona literally means crown). The picture on the 1 krona coin (above) is of our King Carl XVI Gustaf.
1 American Dollar ~ 7,20 SEK
1 British Pound ~ 11,20 SEK
1 Euro ~ 9,20 SEK
In January 2013, I ask myself what, if anything, has changed on the money front in the last 2½ years?
Apparently the Swedish economy has grown stronger.
These are today’s figures (25 January, 2013):
1 American dollar ~ 6,48 SEK
1 British pound ~ 10,23 SEK
1 Euro ~ 8,68 SEK
In October 2010 we got rid of the last of the ‘öre’ coins.
Back in my childhood, in the 1950’s, there were 1, 2, 5, 10, 25 and 50 öre coins.
There were also 5 kronor bills back then.
I still have one saved from the year I was born:
Our smallest bill nowadays is 20 kronor. It’s nicknamed a “Selma” because on the front it shows the Swedish author Selma Lagerlöf, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1909.
One of her most famous books is ‘The Wonderful Adventures of Nils’, a boy who shrank to the size of little gnome and flew on a goose from the south of Sweden to the North, seeing the whole country:
Today, however, even if you happen to have your wallet full of 20, 50, 100, 500 and 1000 kronor bills, it may not get you where you want to go. In many places, my town and area included, it is no longer to possible to pay cash on the bus. You may have your pockets full of coins and bills, but without a valid plastic card you have to walk.
