Living on DKK 50 a day: My spreadsheet is disappointed. I’m not

For the first time in two weeks, the card terminal wants me to approve an amount with three digits. I place my phone against it. Beep. I’m DKK 113 the poorer. The bartender hands me two large draught beers. My evening is under way, and my meticulous savings plan has been derailed.

I am halfway through an experiment in which I have only DKK 1,500 (EUR 200) to live on for the entire month of February in Copenhagen. A survey by the Danish trade union DM last year showed that 26 per cent of its student members lived on less.

Personally, I usually spend almost four times as much. But surely it is possible, I thought. And for the first two weeks I found myself in a financial state of flow. I started gaming it, counting things, and hoarding money to see just how little I could get away with in terms of spending.

READ ALSO: Living on DKK 50 a day: My unexpected obsession with savings

But the spreadsheet engine that has fuelled my motivation so far is now running on empty. I’m bored.

Back to the consumer society

The savings expert Sune Bjørn Andersen, whom I spoke to in the first instalment of this series, quite rightly predicted that the first week would be driven by curiosity. But as the days gradually merge into porridge and lentil stew, it no longer feels like there is much left to be curious about.

My obsessive Excel high over the past couple of weeks has given me a small financial buffer of just under DKK 300

At this stage of the experiment, I have in all likelihood cracked the code to living cheaply: legumes and cycling. But as a newsroom colleague pointed out to me, this doesn’t really make me any wiser about another — and probably more important — facet of the experiment: Can I live well for DKK 1,500 a month? Can I have fun?

I’m stubborn. I can eat porridge with protein powder for lunch every day. So long as it only affects me. The problem is: What happens when it starts affecting other people? Besides, I’ve started to have doubts about my own strategy — because why save at all if I’m not going to spend the savings on anything?

It’s time to re-enter consumer society. Because what’s the point of saving — or for that matter living — if it’s devoid of pleasure?

My mental exit from the slow lane and on to the motorway of hedonism leads me towards one of the places that I’ve feared the most during the experiment: The Copenhagen beer bar.

A bad, well-considered, decision

I haven’t been a good boyfriend since my girlfriend returned from a study trip to Africa right in the middle of my savings experiment. It is easy to be frugal when it’s just me, but when it affects others, I feel stingy.

My obsessive Excel high over the past couple of weeks has given me a small financial buffer of just under DKK 300.

READ ALSO: Can you live on DKK 50 a day in Copenhagen? A student experiment

The surplus was actually intended as a backup in case the snow forced me off my bike and onto the metro. But priorities shift quickly. So I’m taking my partner out on a date.

We go for a walk in the city and end up at a basement bar somewhere between Nørreport station and the lakes. We could have found somewhere cheaper maybe. But there is an icy, biting, wind out here, and the prospect of warm shelter, has us giving up on any hunt for a good deal.

My fear of beer bars is not only due to the outrageous prices in this city. It is also due to the sly mechanism that is baked into their business model: As you consume their products, you gradually lose your judgement — and your primary defence against buying more.

We drink draught beers in the warm indoors. By the time I leave, I have spent one thirteenth of this month’s budget.

An economic trilemma

I have promised to cook dinner.

It is an opportunity to soothe my guilty conscience.

My girlfriend and I live together and share most expenses — including many of the expenses that I have to cover from my DKK 1,500. My project therefore puts me in a dilemma, actually a ‘trilemma’. She either eats the same budget lentils as I do until March (not great). Or we eat separately (even worse). Or she continues living as usual but pays a disproportionately larger share of our food costs.

It gave me a feeling of happiness that cannot be portioned out and stored in the fridge

She has chosen the latter. But this imbalance troubles me. It clashes with my own self-image that I have to be supported by someone else — and especially by my partner. It is as if I am a dependent, ‘leeching’ off of her. Perhaps I can tip the balance temporarily with a good meal.

So I stroll out of the Føtex supermarket with DKK 172 of ingredients for a nice evening at home: pasta, soft drinks, and a heavy bag of my partner’s favourite sweets from a glowing shelf of pick’n’mix.

I spent DKK 285 today. This is ten times my average daily spend so far in February.

I could probably have turned that amount into a lentil stew that would have kept me going for the rest of the experiment, but the evening gave me something else. It gave me a sense of being an equal partner who was generous — someone who gives. It gave me a feeling of happiness and this can’t be divvied up into portions and stored in the fridge.

Now I just hope that Copenhagen won’t be hit by another snowstorm.

READ ALSO: Save more, live more: Student budget hacks for Copenhagen

Poor boyfriend, lousy boyfriend?

My savings experiment is only a four-week simulation, and I will probably survive it. But it has made me reflect on the role of money in romantic relationships.

Love is the only thing that matters. That is certainly the Walt Disney-like message they will have us believe. But the American vox pops my Instagram algorithm serves me suggest the exact opposite: nothing is more important than income.

A survey by Aller Media in 2025 seems to land somewhere in the middle. 62 per cent of Nordic women say they expect their partner to take primary financial responsibility. One in five secretly wish to be provided for by their partner. Half of Danish women over 60 expect their partner to contribute financial stability.

Sweetie? How would you feel if I only ever had DKK 1,500 to live on? Would that be a problem?

At the same time, 64 per cent say that emotional safety and practical stability are the most important things in a relationship. For just under half, the most important thing is that their partner is mentally present. 43 per cent say that the most important thing is that their partner can show, and talk about, their emotions.

Are money and emotional presence both necessary? Or can a deficit on one front be compensated by a surplus on the other?

»Sweetie?« I ask my partner a few days after our night out. »How would you feel if I only ever had DKK 1,500 to live on? Would that be a problem?«

It would probably end up being annoying, she replies. At least if we didn’t find new ways of being together.

This sounds, reassuring? I am certainly left with a sense that I would be a lousy boyfriend if I dragged our standard of living down. I can also see how it affects my friends — they know I’m doing the experiment, so they have started paying for my beers when we meet after lectures.

I don’t want to keep sponging off my partner and my friends. But I find it hard not to feel like a failure if I end the month — and the experiment — in the red.

Do I simply suffer from scarcity anxiey? I find myself thinking back to a school trip to Austria when I was in 7th grade, which for me ended up being all about … money. That’s a story for next week.

This article was first written in Danish and published on 17 February. It has been translated into English and post-edited by Mike Young.