Yes, housing is a bit difficult in Sweden. There is no real private rental market so it's a bit difficult for newcomers. Your only options are renting an apartment from a company, buying a co-op, buying a house and maybe renting a house from a private person but that is usually short term. People don't do rentals as businesses in Sweden, it's an almost unheard of practice. Every place will have a couple of major landlords managing hundreds of apartments and you're supposed to queue to get a contract. Prices should be reasonable though. It's a weird system that feels utterly unfamiliar to anyone who is not born there (me too, I am still wtf about it all).
If you were going to Stockholm your only truly sustainable option would be to buy a place and pray for the best, in Dalarna I guess you may get your hands on a what they call first hand rental (which is the only normal rental, as what they call second hand rental is something that is by definition temporary). I hope you have a relocation consultant helping you navigate this? It is a weird landscape for someone coming from a different world.
I had to google to understand your smoker question (I guess that tells you something), found this
https://www.texasmonthly.com/bbq/interview-johan-fritzell-of-holy-smoke-bbq/To quote
"Swedes love to grill, but low-and-slow, Texas-style barbecue is a concept so foreign that only one restaurant in the country serves it."
But it says they also sell smokers so you should be fine.
I think you will enjoy Sweden, just really, I think compared to the US (based on reading this forum, not having been there) you will find that most stuff is simply really expensive. You get used to it and a lot of it will be offset by the fact you will have next to no healthcare and education expenses (for kids everything is completely free, as adults you will be supposed to pay something here and there but it is still dirt cheap compared to most places, especially the US).
Maybe this is useful, skip the whole brochure as this is really nothing new for a Mustachian, but this is done by the Consumer protection agency and on the last two pages (which you need to print to align properly) you have their estimates of the monthly cost of certain basic things
https://www.konsumentverket.se/globalassets/publikationer/privatekonomi/koll-pa-pengarna-2018-engelska-konsumentverket.pdfI think their estimates are fairly Mustachian as they are used to define welfare payments.
Have you done the correct calculations to know your actual after tax salary?
For example, if your pretax salary is 50 000 and you live in Falun, you go home with 33 000.
Keep in mind that for kids you also get something called barnbidrag. 2650 sek per month for two kids.
I am sure you will be able to save but my guess would be definitely less than living in the US.
Everything is simply more expensive.
Take Netflix for example. The basic one screen account costs 109 sek in Sweden. That's 13$. I am sure it costs less in the US (here in Luxembourg 8€).
And that goes for every single thing you can imagine, it will simply be wtf expensive if you compare it to something you used to pay somewhere else (speaking from the experience of someone who moved to Sweden from abroad and then moved somewhere else again)
Unless you're from Norway like Linda, in that case yes, everything will be cheap lol.
Some more things I remember as ridiculously expensive from Sweden, hm:
1. Shipping (ordering something online is often spoiled by having to pay 50-80 sek for them to ship it to you WITHIN Sweden
2. General postal fees (prepare to need to pay 80 sek every time someone sends you a parcel from the US just because they had to be bothered by it)
3. Cinema tickets (150 sek easily for a 3d movie)
4. Any kind of entrance tickets into anything really, I am still in disbelief what my boys paid for some fun stuff in Stockholm last summer, and I mean really, to get a family of 4 into a popular museum or something like that that is not free for kids (i.e. that is a tourist bait) you can easily expect to fork out a 1000 sek before a kid said they were hungry ;)
5. Alcohol (my husband doesn't want to move back to Sweden ever and I feel at least 60% of his motivation is n the fact he can now have a glass of cider or sparkling wine with dinner without feeling like he is endulging in luxury)...you can also only buy booze at specialized stores that are not open on the weekends.
But as said, in the long run all this will be evened out by the non-existant cost of healthcare and education so it should definitely not be seen as an anti-Mustachian deal breaker, just be prepared, I honestly think average or even above average disposable income doesn't go as far in Sweden as in some other places simply because you often can't avoid expensive crap.
I guess in Dalarna you're going to need a car. No experience there but something tells me that's going to be an expensive thing to have in a place like Sweden.