What a $1000 Monthly Budget ACTUALLY Buys You in Albania in 2026

Added: 2026-05-24

[00:00:00]A few months ago, I made a video discussing how much money I spend per month living in Albania. After reading through all the comments, I realized that my $2,000 a month budget might be a little bit higher than some people are willing to spend. Many people were asking me if I thought it was possible to live on $1,000 per month here. And after doing a little research and thinking about it, I do think it's possible, but you have to budget wisely.

[00:00:22]So today, I'm going to show you how to live on $1,000 per month here in Albania. Before we start, I'm going to make a few assumptions. First, I'm going to assume that this budget is for a single person. Second, I'm going to assume that you have a US passport because that way you don't have to run into any visa fees since people with US passports can stay in Albania for one year visa free. And third, I'm going to assume that you are flexible with your transportation. You're willing to take buses, walk, you don't always need taxis, that kind of thing. I'm going to break our $1,000 a month budget into five categories. The first one being housing. Second, food and basic necessities. third, socializing, fun, traveling, that sort of thing. Fourth, transportation, and fifth, others. Out of our $1,000 a month budget, I would recommend allocating $400 a month to housing. Now, you have two options. You can either rent short-term or you can rent long-term. If you're looking to rent short-term, I would recommend not using Booking.com or Airbnb. For whatever reason, the short-term market here, the prices have just exploded.

[00:01:21]Like, it's astronomical to rent an apartment on Airbnb. And like even on a higher budget, I couldn't even afford it. So, I would recommend looking into Facebook groups and to rent directly from someone. I'll list the Facebook groups on the screen here and then I'll also put the links in the description below. Just like a rule of thumb for this video, any recommendations that I have, I'll put the links in the description below. But renting directly from someone, especially if you're just looking to say one month, two month, 3 months is like a really great way to save a lot of money. For example, I want to use my apartment as a use case. I have a two-bedroom, one bath apartment and I'm actually considering renting out my second room just to bring my housing cost down, right? I would put my second bedroom up on the Facebook groups for $375 a month. And let me show you what this would get someone. So, you would get a nice queen-siz bed, all of these cabinets, big old garden dresser. I would remove the litter boxes. I would probably put like a desk here, you know, so someone would have a little desk. And then we would share bathroom, living room, kitchen, and you could even meet Mila.

[00:02:30]Yeah. What do you I don't know. She must be watching for Alb's. If you're someone who's looking to come to Tana or any major city in Albania, I recommend getting on the Facebook groups, looking at what the options are, but also making a post and say, "Hey, this is what I'm looking for. Does anybody have extra space or room for my dates?" And I think you'll find that a $400 a month budget if you're willing to be a little flexible in the way that you live will get you a nice space. Next, let's talk long-term. Now, this is a process I am very intimately familiar with because I just went through it at the beginning of the year. I signed a one-year lease, my very first lease outside of the United States for my apartment that I absolutely love here in Sulk, a neighborhood that is about 15 minutes outside of Toddana. I went through a real estate agent to find my place. And I highly recommend if you're looking to stay, especially in Tyanao, for one year, you use the real estate agent.

[00:03:24]Now, you can use the Facebook groups.

[00:03:26]You can rent directly from someone. You can choose to not incur the realtor fees. But if you're renting from someone for one year, if you rent directly, you don't necessarily get like a legitimate contract. I just know if I'm going to spend longer than a couple of months somewhere, I want things in writing. I want to fully understand what's included, what's not included, if something breaks, who pays for it. And in my opinion, the realtor fee is worth its weight and gold just to have a document with all of that laid out. I will put my real estate agents information in the description if you're looking to rent Toddana. She is the best. Like, she negotiated for me. She found me a phenomenal place that met my exact needs. And guys, like it's not super easy in Toddana to find a place to write with animals, but she found me the perfect place and I could not be happier. And she's also a friend of the channel because she adopted Tux the Cat, too. So, I would highly recommend reaching out to Kavisa. Again, information in the description if you're looking to rent long-term in Tana. And I think it's possible to rent a long-term place for $400 a month. You just got to get a little bit creative in the areas that you live in. You live a little bit further out of the city. You can also look at maybe living in areas like Albasan or Valor C or Duras. Just from what I've seen on the Facebook groups, those three cities are a little bit cheaper than Tyana. And I think if you are willing to do a long-term contract and also willing to pay a real estate agent, you can get exactly what you want. Now that we've gone through housing, let's talk about food and basic expenses. Out of our $1,000 a month budget, I would allocate about $300 a month to food and basics. I know what you're thinking. $300 a month seems like a lot, but hear me out. The dollar is working against us right now. You're only getting about 80 le per one US dollar. And just like there's inflation in the United States, there's inflation here, too. Prices are ranging based on where things are coming from. And that's why I think allocating $300 a month for your food and basics with like a $50 a week budget for groceries and maybe a $25 a week budget for like eating out, meeting friends, that sort of thing.

[00:05:30]Again, budget how you want. That's what I would do about $75 a week. I'm heading into my little village now. Most neighborhoods in Albania kind of have the same setup. So, within a couple minutes walking, you can easily access a bakery, a butcher, fruit and vegetables, a small grocery store. So, let's get into the village and I'll show you. We will start our shopping day at the fruit and veggie market where you can get literally anything imported and local.

[00:05:56]Prices here can change daily based on supply and demand, and everything is priced per kilo unless marked like these avocados that are priced per unit.

[00:06:04]Eating fresh here is so easy and accessible. And I think you'll be surprised about how much I got compared to how little I spent. I just got done to the fruit and veg market and in total I ended up spending 680 le. Now, I bought a bag of salad and an avocado, which are not things I would normally buy. I was living on a $1,000 a month budget here. So subtracting those, I spent 350 LE. I got cherries, a banana, carrots, onion, bell pepper, potatoes.

[00:06:32]For 350 LE, uh that'll be enough fruit and vegetables for me for about 2 or 3 days, which I think is pretty good. So I would say out of the $50 per week, I would allocate about 10 for fruits and vegetables. Next, let's head over to the bakery and get some fresh bread. Eek.

[00:06:46]Okay, just left the bakery. I got a loaf of Ingra bread. So this is like whole wheat bread. a little bit healthier, easy way to get some extra nutrients in.

[00:06:55]This was 120 LE and this will last me about 4 days. They have cheaper options.

[00:07:00]Like you can get a loaf of bread for 90 LE, 100 LE, but I think for the 20 LE upgrade for the quality and the nutrient ad using like just the seeds and the whole wheat flour with it still being very fresh is a good and cheap upgrade.

[00:07:15]Next, let's head to the little grocery store. I'm going to show you some pricing for like meat and then pantry staples, rice, pasta, lentils, that sort of thing. And then also maybe some pricing on some basics like shampoo, conditioner, soap, toothbrush, toothpaste, that kind of thing. So, let's go. So, here's some house staples just for my little corner grocery store.

[00:07:34]There are larger shops in Tana, but most neighborhoods will have at least one grocery store that's fully stocked. I've purchased many of my shelf stable items and personal products here, but like most people, I spread my shopping between a few different markets. I also always look online for deals, especially on specialty or imported items. But the pricing on basics is pretty much the same regardless of what shop you go to.

[00:07:56]You're living in the small grocery store now. I mean, you can clearly see like how you can cook for pennies here, right? A bag of rice is under a dollar.

[00:08:03]A bag of pasta is under a dollar.

[00:08:05]Lentils $2. And for one person, I mean, a bag of rice can last you weeks, right?

[00:08:10]Next, I'm going to head over to my little butcher. So, I was going to show you the pricing for the meat at the grocery store, but it looks like they were working on the cooler, so they didn't have any of the meat prices out.

[00:08:19]But I'm going to go over to a little butcher that I like. They have frozen chicken pieces, so to speak. But everything is from Albania. It's local.

[00:08:27]To be honest, I use it to make the cat's food, but I also eat it sometimes myself because I have a lot of frozen chicken thighs in the house. I'm just going to pop one in. But I'll show you what the price is on the frozen meat. Again, it's from Albania. It's local, but you can get a lot of protein and a lot of lean protein at that for not very high prices. It's difficult to see the pricing here, and I get a little weird filming in small shops, so let me explain. What we're seeing here is chicken thighs and legs. I think it's called like a quarter chicken for 420 LE per kilo. Then we have chicken wings for 380 LE per kilo. Drumsticks for 400 le per kilo. and boneless, skinless chicken breast for 550 le per kilo. So, I bought four chicken thighs, which for me would last me about 4 days or 420 L. Also, while I was in there, I was looking at a nice bottle of olive oil. I thought it was a pretty good deal, 850 L for like Albanian olive oil. But the woman who owns the place stopped me and she was like, "Don't buy that. That's like made in a factory." She's like, "We have fresh olive oil from our family's garden like outside of the city." And I was like, "Is it just olives?" Cuz sometimes when they make the olive oil, they'll cut it with soybean oil and stuff uh to make it last a little longer. She's like, "Yeah, it's just olives." I was like, "Well, how much is a liter?" And she said it was a,000 L. So like 10 per liter. Like that's an amazing deal. She ended up giving me this bottle, liter, 150 le. And like a liter and a half of fresh from the farm olive oil is going to last me maybe two months probably.

[00:10:04]And that's cooking most of my meals. I mean, where on this planet are you going to spend what, like $13 and get a liter and a half of fresh olive oil? Okay, when we get back to the house, I'll talk about eating out, maybe some like delivery food cost, that kind of thing. On the way home, I also bought a 10 liter of water as well for 120 LE.

[00:10:24]You can't drink the water out of the faucet here, so most people just buy it.

[00:10:27]Next, let's talk about eating out. Now, I understand a $1,000 a month budget is pretty low. But I'm also not going to sit here and say you can never leave the house, you can never have any fun, you can't eat out, you can't get delivery food, cuz that's simply not the case.

[00:10:40]But you do have to be a little bit careful with how you spend the money.

[00:10:43]So, in this budget scenario, I'm allocating $25 a week to eating out. So, a medium level restaurant here is going to cost between $6 and $10 per plate.

[00:10:53]You can eat cheaper when we're doing like the fond and socializing section of this video. I'll show you the cafes and about eating some street food here, but I'm talking about like you're working late, you got nothing in the fridge, and you just need something delivered quick.

[00:11:06]Uh, an app I use here, it's called Walt.

[00:11:09]Walt is kind of like an Uber Eats or Postmates, but appropriately priced for the location. An example of a restaurant that I order from regularly is called Villa Ferdinand. Uh, I can get a sandwich and a soup delivered to my house. Fresh ingredients. It's very good for about 750 or $800 le. You're ordering from like a local restaurant, you can be closer to the $5 to $6 range.

[00:11:33]I think $75 a week about covers it. $300 a month. Next, let's talk about transportation. Out of a $1,000 monthly budget, I would allocate $10 a month to transportation. Now, if you're from the US or another country where you rely on a car to get around, I know $10 feels like such a low amount of money for one month of transportation. But in the last 6 and 1/2 years of living abroad, I've never lived in a location where I couldn't walk to get all of my basic necessities with the exception of that one month I spent in Italy, that horrible co-l livingiving, but we won't count that. So, living here in Tudana, most of the time I walk to get where I need to go. But if I want to go somewhere a little bit further and I can't walk, I take the bus. And the buses are great here in Toddana. I have heard like mixed reviews and a lot of my friends to be honest like kind of complain about them. I think the biggest issue is that sometimes they don't come on time or they get second traffic and the schedules uh that you see online are not reflective of what actually happens with the bus. But that's like any city in the world. That's not just here in Tana. About a year ago, Google Maps routed all the buses. So they have realtime routing on their buses. A lot of people don't know this. If you pull up Google Maps and you click on the station you're at, you'll see like the real-time map of where your bus is. So, instead of relying on the schedules online, I just do that. And that's like within a couple of minutes accurate.

[00:12:53]Like I said, I find the buses here to be great. They're cheap. A one-way ticket is 50 cents. And that's just to get on the bus and to go where you're going on that line. They don't charge you based on stop. Like if you ride one stop or you ride 10 stops, it's the same price.

[00:13:07]They're clean, usually aironditioned.

[00:13:09]Sometimes they're hot, sometimes they're cold. Again, they're buses. Like, sometimes they're super busy, sometimes they're not. Even in my regular life, I take the bus maybe three days a week just to kind of go to larger shopping centers or meet friends. But for the most part, I walk. If you are looking to take taxis, I highly recommend downloading the PCO app. They don't have Uber here, but they have something called PCO. You can connect some credit cards to it now, which is big, cuz in the past you couldn't, and you had to pay cash. But you can connect your credit card. You could use it like Uber, that sort of thing. And that works really well. are just really pricey. 10 bucks a month for transportation. That's what I would do. So, next, let's talk about the best category in this whole budget. Fun, travel, socializing, that sort of thing. Albby and I are so excited to tell you about fun and socializing and travel and the fun part of this budget. Right, Be? For a $1,000 a month budget, I would allocate $200 a month to fun. $200 a month, I think, will get you pretty far here in Albania.

[00:14:04]Now, for me, I would prioritize travel, especially if you're only here short term, simply because like you want to be able to see this country, and this country is beautiful. Like, the mountains are insane. The ocean is crazy. I honestly did not think that the Alban Albanian coastline would be as nice as it is, but when my family was here a few weeks back, we visited the coastline. We did some more like vacation style tour stuff I just hadn't done yet, and I was in awe. And this is a country I highly recommend. Whether you're here for a month or a year, you should travel. So, the best way to travel in Albania is by bus. So, yesterday I went over to the bus station and I spoke to a woman who worked there cuz I couldn't really find a lot of information online as far as like tickets and prices and that sort of thing. And I know here in Albania for just like a lot of different processes, you really have to go in person. So I went over and I just said, "Okay, so like for example, if I wanted to take a trip to uh Lake Odid, like to the lake in Macedonia, I guess there's part of it in Albania, part of it in Macedonia, but if I want to take a trip to Macedonia, 2 and a half hour drive, how much would that cost?" and she said, "Today that costs €18, but because there's no set rate, like that price can fluctuate pretty heavily because one bus company might drop it to 17, one bus company might jack it up to €25." So like it really depends on the day-to-day. They somebody just like randomly sets the market price and then the prices the other companies kind of meet that price.

[00:15:35]Also, because gas is so expensive right now, prices for buses are going up. But I don't think 20 euro or 18 euro for either like a nice coach bus or a nice mini bus is that much money for two and a half hours of travel. So if you're looking to travel in Albania, highly recommend uh heading over to like the main bus terminal near you and checking on the prices yourself. I like I said, I would allocate most of my fun budget to travel. But I do want to show you a few inexpensive and free things that I do with friends here in Toddana to keep my costs in town down. Oh, that rhymed.

[00:16:12]Albio was a rhyme.

[00:16:15]Yeah.

[00:16:17]Say, are you looking at things? Yeah, you're so good. Okay, we are in Tana's Lake Park. And this, in my opinion, is the best free thing to do in this entire city. So, in the middle of their city, they built this massive artificial lake with these walking trails, and it's just such a nice reprieve from the noise of the city. I'll bring the cats down here.

[00:16:41]I will come down here and jog by myself, but it's just a really wonderful way to relax and kind of either reset for me at the beginning of a long day or sometimes at the end of a long day. People will come down and fish. If you see there's like little dirt paths maybe people can come down now. You can see like the city in the distance, right? Like you can see the big buildings. You can see there's like cafes and stuff over on the other side of the lake. But for me, like this is just the best part of the city. Next, we're going to check out a cafe because that's probably the second biggest thing I do with friends. Go to cafes, have a coffee, and hang out there. So, we're going to go to a pet friendly one since I've got little Albi today. Yeah, Beak.

[00:17:23]We're going to a cafe and you're going to get a big boy treat. Okay, so since I've got Albi, we're going to go to the cafe that's connected to the Petville, the pet shop here. Now, this is the Zumi's Cafe. Keep in mind, this is a nice cafe in a nice part of town, and I think you'll be surprised by how low the prices are.

[00:17:41]Albby and I both need the hydration. Oh, there's a lot of lemon in that. So, we're at Zumi's Cafe, and again, this is a nice cafe in a nice part of town. And you can get an espresso here for 90 le.

[00:17:53]Like, I got this juice. It's apple, lemon, and celery. It's fresh pressed.

[00:17:57]They have like a Vitamix in there. And this is 250. Look like where in the United States are you getting a fresh pressed juice for $3. Like again, it's a little bit more expensive cuz it is in a nice part of town, but you can come to a cafe like this, just sit, enjoy the patio, just get a 90 le espresso and hang out with your friend. I dropped Albi off at home. And the last thing I want to talk about in this fun category is cheap eats while you're out and about. So, say you meet a friend at the lake park, you guys take a walk, you stop at a cafe, you get like a 100 luck espresso, and you go to your bus stop, and you're waiting for your bus to get back to your apartment, and you are starving, but you don't want to spend a lot of money. And there is a food that's made on every corner of this city that'll fill your belly up without breaking the bank. And that is a buck. A buck is a flaky pastry filled with something delicious. So I've seen them filled with like meat or potatoes, cheese, vegetables, and my personal favorite, the ricot cheese and spinach filled buck. Backs are available pretty much any bakery in the city. And there's a bakery on every block. So you really can't miss them. You just go in and ask if they have any buck if you don't see them. But a beck will cost you anywhere from like 80 to 200 le depending on where you're buying it. The one that I bought today was 80 le cuz I'm in my village and in my opinion my village bakery has the best ones but everyone kind of has their favorite spot. So I highly recommend out and about absolutely starving get yourself a beac.

[00:19:34]Okay now let's talk about our last category our slush fund or what I'm calling the other category. Anytime I'm making any sort of budget, I always like to leave a little bit of money just for like a slush fund or like one category and my budget was more expensive that month or I want to do something this month, that kind of thing. So, in this $1,000 a month budget, I left $90 for others. And here in Albania, I think there's a few things that you can purchase in this category of money that doesn't really fit anywhere else. For example, like a premium subscription to the Walt app, I think is something that's really helpful and pretty cheap.

[00:20:10]No, the subscription to Walt costs 300 le per month. And this is going to give you free delivery fees and discounted service fees. But I think for the spend, if you're someone who does occasionally rely on delivery food and other delivery services like getting medicine if you're sick or just groceries if you're in a bind, that kind of thing, think the 300 le is worth the price. Also in this category, I would include like a phone plan. So you can get a Vodafone like a 3 gig a month plan for 1,100 or 1,200 luck per month. Another thing is like health insurance. I was thinking about that too. So I have a very basic plan for my health insurance because it's required for the digital nomad visa. So I paid €55 for one year of emergency insurance.

[00:20:55]And being from the United States, I was shocked about €55 got me for the year.

[00:21:01]So I get my little emergency plan document. I'm like, "Okay, it won't do anything. It's just a check on the box for my visa fees, right? Oh, no, no, no.

[00:21:08]I get 5,000 euro of emergency services if needed per year. It's like if I have to go to the emergency room for whatever reason, which hopefully, knock on wood, I do not have to. Um, I am covered for up to 5,000 euro, which is crazy. Like 55 a year, I it it blows my red, white, and blue brain. So, that's something if you're looking into that. Obviously, insurance can vary from very cheap to very expensive. Uh, if you need to see a doctor here, I went to a specialist. I went to a dermatologist.

[00:21:40]It cost me €50 to get my skin checked. I think just to go to a regular doctor, 2025. But what you're going to expect going to the dentist here, uh, cleaning can range anywhere from 20 to€50 depending on where you're going. I went to a specialist for my vertigo, osteopath, uh, physiootherapist. really really specialized in like what I needed and he was €60 a visit, but you can get lower emergency insurance because you can actually afford to go to the doctor here. That is how I would spend $1,000 a month if that was my budget. What do you guys think? Do you think I allocated the money correctly? What would you do different? Let me know in the comments.

[00:22:19]If there's anything else you want me to touch on in Albania, too, let me know in the comments. Again, I'm happy to make videos on different topics here. Cat related things, Albania related things, pet friendly things here. I've got lots of ideas, but if there's anything targeted that you want to know, let me know. So, thanks for watching, guys.

[00:22:34]We'll see you soon.