Listen to Susanna on Radio Lincolnshire today

Susanna and family, Chris and Asha, have been on an experiment to not use a credit card for meeting daily living costs. This is an effort to break the viscious cycle of living beyond one's means or falling into debt caused by depending on the plastic (usual terminology for using various plastic credit cards.

I missed the first interview which was about 6 weeks ago. (See an earlier blog entry about this.)

(Click on the picture to listen to the interview of her today by Dave Bussey of BBC Radio Lincolnshire. This is the first time I am trying this so the file (large) may be downloaded to you computer and then it may have to be played using iTunes or some similar player. Please tell me if there are any problems!!)

The kids, Susanna, Jaakko, and Joanna and Mika (holding
their cousins), in 1984 in Oulu§, before Susanna left for England.
Sound is Susanna on BBC Radio Lincolnshire in April 2005

Susanna left Finland in 1984, about 6 months after we moved to Finland. Annikki and I had a difficult time making ends meet as we had to support all four kids. Susanna needed a reasonable sum to live by herself in England. However, we managed that without any plastic AND by keeping detailed accounts of all what we spent.

In 1994, Annikki and I authored a book called "Handbook for Survival in Finland" which was meant for foreigners who came to live in the most expensive country in the world.


Book cover with a picture of Annikki's father, Matti,
with an 18 kg salmon he caught from the local Oulu River

Finns used to believe that they had the highest standard of living just because everything was expensive. Most of them did not know the difference between "standard of living" and "cost of living".

The book, which was quite explosive (see Annikki's warning note in RED on the cover), was a best seller with all copies sold out in a just a few days. It was written and self published by Annikki and me, using my Apple PowerBook 170 portable computer, Desk Top Publishing software, a laser printer (colour printing was done at a contract facility and using their colour photopier), the kitchen stove for binding the book, and a small plastic to paper laminator!!