Here are some tips for anyone wanting to save some money in Finland, while also being ecological.
1. Finnish tap water is among the best and cleanest in the world. Drink it.
Wherever you are in Finland, whatever city, whatever building, the tap water is drinkable. And it is not only drinkable, it's cleaner than any bottled water available! There's absolutely no point in drinking bottled water in finland. Save the environment and your money by not buying water bottles.
2. Recycle beverage bottles and cans to get your money back.
Most bottled drinks include a deposit payment that you get back when the bottle is returned to the store. The main deposit-refund system run by Palpa is available in all department stores.
When you buy a cola bottle, you pay an additional fee of 0,20€. When you return the bottle you will get the money back. For the bigger bottles the fee is 0,40€ and for cans it's 0,15€. So recycle your containers to save money!
Some people even do this for work, as you can make some money from collecting discarded bottles. Bottle collectors are a common sight in parks and public places.
A thing to note: plastic bottles bought from Lidl department stores are returnable only to Lidl. They are marked with a red banner like this:
For some reason, Lidl has not joined the Palpa system and instead created their own system.
3. Buy expiring food products with a discount of 60%.
When food products are nearing their expiry date, stores will put red 30% discount stickers on them. What many people don't know, most stores have a system where this discount is changed to 60% during the last opening hourss. So if the store closes at 22:00, the 60% discount takes effect after 21:00.
If the store has in-house baked bread and pastries, those are also discounted by 60% when bought on the last opening hour. And they are perfectly good for eating tomorrow!
Often the discounted products still have multiple days before they expire!
This system helps to reduce the amount of refuse. The stores generate less waste and also get some money back from the expiring products.
Note that 24h stores might not have this additional 60% discount system.
If you have any questions, or additional tips, please comment!
All photographs are mine and are released to the public domain for whatever use.