What £800/Month Gets You in the Muslim World vs the West

Added: 2026-05-19

[00:00:00]Alhamdulillah, my family of five, nearly six, lives in the Muslim world on £800 a month. That's less than the average British family spends just on rent. In this video, you're going to see every pound and penny broken down. Now, just to give you a comparison before we dive into each individual expense that I have, because I track it all, I wanted to look at average kind of city in the West, let's say the UK, Nottingham. Not a really expensive city like London, but also not the middle of nowhere kind of thing. So, on average, according to the data that's available online, people spend nearly £1,200 a month on groceries in Nottingham. They might spend about £80 just on fuel if they're driving one car around as a family, and basic utilities like water, electricity, etc. cost them about £200 a month. And for a family of five like myself, just groceries cost 800 to about 1,000 pounds every single month. And then we get to rent, which is the biggest expense, and on average for a three-bedroom house outside of the city center, the most expensive parts of Nottingham, you're going to spend about £1,100.

[00:01:06]Now, of course, I didn't choose to live in the Muslim world across UAE, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and now Algeria for the cost of living, but it's a nice bonus.

[00:01:15]One thing that it means is that if you've got income coming from abroad, especially, it means you could have a very low-paying job actually, or a low-income business, and you can still live okay in many parts of the Muslim world. This means that money is less of a stress factor for you, and it sometimes it might mean that you just have to work two, three days a week. And although I live in Algeria, these kind of numbers apply roughly to countries like Tunisia, Morocco, Egypt, and Pakistan. So, now we've got an idea of what we're looking at in the West for the cost of living, let's look at my real-life data for my life in Algeria so far. Okay, here are my exact numbers on the screen right now. So, let's start with my cost of rent, because that's not going to show up here because I pay that at the beginning of the year, and you pay for the whole 12 months up front.

[00:01:57]So, that's how it works in Algeria, Turkey, and many countries, I think. Um so, my cost of rent for a huge apartment, five-bedroom, uh 180-something square meter apartment. It We're the first people to move in. It's a new building, new apartment. It's got its own parking. It's got security guards and stuff like that. It doesn't really have um anything like a gym or a pool or anything like that. And it's in Algiers, the most expensive city in Algeria by far. And it's in a middle-class area, maybe medium to a bit of the upper medium side, I think. That's my uh way I understand.

[00:02:34]And I pay 115,000 dinars per month. I think most of you watching the West would say that's an amazing deal. And this is This is in Algiers, the most expensive city. So, even looking at that number now, I'm like, "Wow, that is a good deal." Um when I first moved to Turkey in 2021, uh when things were still cheap over there, um I was paying 350 for a three-bedroom apartment. Uh but, obviously, a bit of a nicer compound, a large compound with like um green areas, places for kids to play, um a gym, all of that. It also had monthly fees. Uh here, my monthly fees is about 6-7 pounds a month. So, there you go. And 377 pounds in dollars is probably about $340, let's say. $340-330 a month. So, that's my rent. You pay all up front. And I would say, I know it can be way cheaper in Algeria, um but the for the the the fact that I came here and within a week of looking, I had picked a place. We're comfortable in this place. Um it's a huge place. Uh I'm happy with it. I I don't regret that.

[00:03:36]So, that's my rent. Getting that out of the way. Next, let's go to what I call necessities, okay? So, here you can see I've got my um necessities. Obviously, we're looking at the averages here. We don't really care about the monthly amounts. Um and I'm spending 79,000 dinars a month on groceries, just groceries. Now, with this I I literally go all out pretty much. I just like buy meat whenever I want. Okay, I'm not like going buying steaks every day and stuff like that. I stick to you know, quite a bit of chicken which is cheaper, etc. Um I think we consume quite a lot of like dairy, which you know, is not one of the cheaper things. But yeah, I don't hold back basically. Um I buy uh stuff like coffee, I buy cheese, etc. You know, stuff that's a little bit more expensive. I don't hold back too much and that's my cost of groceries so far.

[00:04:28]Um so, yeah. I'm pretty This is my reaction to it by the way. Yeah, I'm pretty okay with that, pretty happy with that. Now, my cost of internet is very cheap. So, it's on average I've paid for a few months in advance as well. So, let's say 10 pounds a month, it's about $13, I think. So, $13 for my internet. My internet speed is 480 megabits per second, uh which is a great speed, but I don't always get that speed definitely.

[00:04:53]There's There's some issue. I might need a new router.

[00:04:56]Um but it's definitely acceptable and fine. And at the beginning I was actually getting that full speed, but I might need a new router to take advantage of it or something like that.

[00:05:05]So, happy with that. My electricity and gas bill is ridiculous. Honestly, is ridiculous. You pay every uh 4 months in Algeria and because Algeria is a producer of natural gas, obviously, the electricity, the gas is very cheap and it's subsidized on top of that. So, that's that is what it is. My average is 2,500 dinars a month on electricity and gas. This obviously is much higher spending, I think, than the average person in Algeria, but I'm not the average person in Algeria, um obviously.

[00:05:36]Now, let's look at immediate obligations. So, this is how much This is actually a lot. This is another 95,000 dinars a month. What are we spending on that?

[00:05:45]So, transport I spend an average of 32,000. There must be something going on there.

[00:05:53]Ah, yes. Okay, so that's includes my car.

[00:05:56]All right, I paid part of the customs on my imported car. So, that's what bringing this up. But, the petrol you can see I'd say April was a bit of an average month for petrol, and I spent 3,000 uh 7,500 dinars. Yeah, that's probably I don't know, four five tanks of petrol. Um I would imagine I mean, because I live very far from my family in Algeria, I drive to go see my family.

[00:06:19]I drive like 500 km. So, obviously that's like a whole tank of petrol gone, and then on the way back another whole tank. So, I think 7,500 could be average if I was not doing those long journeys. But anyway, regardless, in Algeria to fill up your tank, it's about £6, you know, $9 or something like that. So, it's crazy. And if you get In Algeria, they have this thing called the GPL, which is um liqu- I think it's liquefied natural gas.

[00:06:46]That is basically free. Like, some cars run on that, or you can get your car converted to run on that. Um but I have a petrol uh car. So, that's transport.

[00:06:55]Healthcare is just like checkups and stuff.

[00:06:58]Um nothing we- nothing significant.

[00:07:01]Household stuff, okay, household stuff.

[00:07:03]That that that brings me on to my cost of furnishing the whole apartment and stuff. I think overall, now when I think about what I spent and the little bits I spend here and there, I think I spent let's say 5 to 6,000 pounds, which when I looked up how much it should cost in the UK, it was telling me at least 12,000 pounds. So, it's about half of that. Um in Algeria, you know, some things like furniture, they're not that cheap um compared to some of these other things we've been looking at. But, I think you know, to start from pretty much scratch and to [snorts] furnish everything and and also not to try and get the cheapest stuff, to try and get stuff that you hope will last 5 years, 10 years, um I think that's reasonable. You know, you tell me what you think, but some of this house stuff, it's when I buy like I don't know. You buy a kettle or a toaster, I always put that in house stuff. Furniture, I put it in house stuff. But, the furniture is not showing up here because I bought that um a while ago. And we're only looking at the last 6 months of data.

[00:08:00]Uh, and then we got miscellaneous fees.

[00:08:01]I think that's stuff like when you park, paying for parking, paying for random stuff, man.

[00:08:07]Cool. So, again, uh that is high, but it's only I think it's only high. What's bringing it up is the house stuff, which hopefully eventually after living in a place for a year, 2 years, that stuff, you know, goes down a lot. And also the paying for my car, the customs for my car.

[00:08:25]Without that, this would be way lower.

[00:08:26]So, it's kind of it be it's one of those things that after that a year or two, um all those expenses kind of go nearly down to zero. So, it would be much lower.

[00:08:35]Okay, let's look at fun, what I call fun, which is just eating out. Okay.

[00:08:40]Eating out. Although, yeah, like when I like go and do hobbies, I might pay for hobbies, like I don't know, something like bowling or paintball or stuff like that, I'll put that here, but I haven't been doing that, so it's only eating out. So, you can see on average we're spending 6 17,000 dinars eating out. I know that every time we eat out, we spend about 4,000 dinars. So, what's this uh let's just assume round it up to 17,000 for a family of five.

[00:09:07]>> [snorts] >> And again, we don't hold back too much, you know. We're not ordering steaks and all that. We also don't go out to eat, we get it delivered cuz we got three young kids and stuff like that. Um So, £55, which is about what is that?

[00:09:21]Is like £13 a month or a bit more than that? Uh a week.

[00:09:26]I think that's all right. I think it's all right. I mean, I set this budget and I'm following that budget. So, I didn't want to spend more than X amount per month, and I'm pretty much stuck to that. I think it's okay, you know, considering it's like once a week.

[00:09:39]Yeah, and I I think in the UK if I was to order, and especially if I wasn't to worry too much about how much it costs, I would easily spend that per week, but here I'm paying that per month. So, it's like four times cheaper if you think of it.

[00:09:53]Yes, there are not as many options, not as many restaurants, cuisines. The delivery's a bit more a bit less convenient, but you know, it's fine, man. So, that's eating out, simple as that. Uh giving, okay, let's leave that.

[00:10:07]Uh that's my thing.

[00:10:09]So, that's when looking at each category. Now, let's look at my spending trends. Okay, here's my spending trends. It's saying that I'm spending 241,000 on average a month, but you What you can see here is that we've got some months like February where things were low, and then we got a big spike here in March. Now, March is when I probably spent um I paid for the customs on my car. Uh what is this?

[00:10:39]I can actually look into it.

[00:10:42]House stuff was 100,000 dinars, and then 150. So, I can tell uh I can tell that you know, this is an anomaly, right? So, the average is not going to be that. If I remove, for example, uh house stuff, let's remove transport and house stuff.

[00:11:00]I think it will give us a more normal look at things. So, average monthly spending, this is without rent, of course, is 155,000.

[00:11:09]That's how much I'm spending. So, at the beginning of the video, I said 800 because that was my estimation, and I'm 80 pounds off only. So, that's how much it costs for me, family of five, nearly six, to live in Algeria in the most expensive city, not holding too much back. I am a naturally frugal person, uh you know, by nature. So, you know, you got to take that into But, that's how much it's cost me so far. I think like in year two, year three, things will be lower, buying less furniture, buying less car related stuff or whatever.

[00:11:42]Um Yeah.

[00:11:45]Now, for the geeks out there, this might be interesting as well. So, looking at the same time period, uh all categories, right? Uh this is how much percentage I'm spending on different things. Obviously, rent is not coming in here. I guess rent is about a third of of my spending. Not my income, but my spending. And you see groceries is a third.

[00:12:05]Just house stuff, right? Which is Remember, this is furniture. This like one-off purchases is 22%. So, eventually that will hopefully go to zero or like maybe 5%. Uh transport, again, it wouldn't be that much if I wasn't paying the customs.

[00:12:20]Eating out is 7% of my spending.

[00:12:22]So, that's kind of how it, you know, if I do the overall groups and stuff like that.

[00:12:29]Okay. There are a few categories there though that I didn't talk about. One is healthcare. So, in Algeria, we generally go to private clinics. They're generally better from what I know, although I've I've I I when I was young, I went to public hospitals. It was pretty much fine for basic things. Um I don't even know if that's very cheap or if it's free. I think it's free to go to public hospitals here. But, I've been going to private hospitals. Now, of course, if you have a big issue, you have need to have a surgery, something serious, may Allah protect us, then of course, you know, you have to spend on that out of your pocket. I could get the nash get into the national insurance program here in Algeria, but generally you only do that by having a job here, and I don't have a job here. The way I I heard that I can get that is by setting up a company here and saying that I work for myself here. Then I would be entitled to getting a card that will give me insurance, basically, which I think takes it covers like 70% of however much the private clinics cost. Um of course, I have to pay my taxes or whatever on the income. So, I'm not doing that right now. I don't think I'll do that because it means I have to set up a company, which means paperwork. And in Algeria, paperwork is something you really want to avoid. Also, it would mean like, I don't know, you have to submit your accounts or something. You have to pay a certain minimum tax every year, stuff like that. I'm not doing that right now.

[00:13:53]Right now, I'm just private. So far, that's how we're doing it. The other thing is schooling.

[00:13:59]If my kids went to school, then I would be paying for a private school, probably. I don't think I'd send them to public school.

[00:14:04]Public schools in Algeria are packed.

[00:14:07]So, the average class size, I think, is like 40 kids, okay? So, my whole thing with homeschooling, like one of the main arguments for homeschooling is with homeschooling generally, you've got one teacher to one child, okay? Or maybe one teacher to two, three children.

[00:14:23]What about And then in an average school, like let's say the school that I went to in the UAE, we had maybe 25 kids in a class. So, what about one teacher to 40 kids? It's just crazy. So, I don't think I would send my kids to a public school here. Also, you always always want to try and control the type of kids you that your kids are mixing with. You want like more religious families, etc. So, you might send them to a more Islamic oriented oriented private school. Now, that would cost some money.

[00:14:49]I don't even I can't even tell you the prices of that here because I've not really taken any interest in it. Um but I guess it would be maybe like couple thousand dollars a year, maybe something like that, maybe even $1,000 a year. Of of course, it depends on the school.

[00:15:03]There are some good schooling options here, apparently. Nobody's truly happy with their private school, though. Let's Let's be honest. Um but, you know, my neighbor, for example, he sends his kids to a certain school. He said it's very Islamic and stuff. There's no mixing and blah blah blah. He's happy with it. I don't know. He claims he's happy with it. Um but I'm homeschooling, so this cost is irrelevant to me. Of course, if I'm homeschooling, I might hire tutors, right? Or I might hire like babysitters or something to help. So, we might hire those kind of people to help us out, which would be a cost. Now, from what I know, yeah, maybe people can correct me in the comments. From what I know, a lower-skilled person in Algeria working full-time might be paid about 30,000 dinars a month, which is which is about 100 pounds. So, if I was to hire somebody full-time or maybe hire two people part-time or whatever to help with those kind of things, maybe it would cost me about 100 pounds. Let's say 150 pounds. So, that's how much it would add to my cost. So, instead of my cost being like 880, it would be approximately 1,000 pounds a month, which is very reasonable for getting that type of help. But, we don't have that at this time. Another thing that I haven't mentioned is the cost of travel.

[00:16:13]Now, a lot of you, if your family is in, let's say, the UK or the US and you move to a Muslim country, you're probably going to go and visit your family once a year or something at least. Or maybe they'll come and visit you. But, that's part of your costs is that you've got to factor in traveling quite a bit. For me, alhamdulillah, my family's pretty much all in Algeria and I'm living in Algeria. So, those costs don't really count. Just driving to my family pretty much, alhamdulillah. When I was living in Turkey, my mom, for example, was ill Allah yerhamha in the UK. So, I was traveling quite a bit to the UK, but Turkey and UK is not too far from each other. It's a very well-established route, so the costs are not too high for that trip. And also, I was traveling to Algeria to see family from Turkey, but again, it's a short distance and it's a cheaper trip. If you're from the US, from Canada, from especially Australia, then this cost becomes much, much bigger. So, it's something to think about and factor in when you're doing your costs. So, 880 pounds a month. Am I happy with it? Yes, it's kind of within the range that I was planning. I think I honestly I might have had more like 700 in my head, but you know, it's the first year. I believe this like I said these costs will go down in year two, year three when I've got my car, when I've got my furniture all sorted, then it's just groceries and bills and stuff like that.

[00:17:30]Uh it would go up maybe when I start sending my kids more to activities, karate, this and that. Maybe doing more trips. Maybe when my kids are older, I might actually eat out more often or do more trips outside which usually means you're eating out maybe for that day.

[00:17:43]So, those costs might go up, but marginally. What would I do differently budget-wise if I was starting again? I don't think I would do anything. Maybe I would just swallow it and accept that my budget for furnishing the house might have to be higher because I think I started out with a 4,000-pound budget and it ended up going to 5 or 6,000. So, I was just trying to be like very conservative, but maybe I should have just accepted like no, look you're and try like you're going to be here for many years, so you're going to buy decent stuff that lasts. So, it is what it is. Now, if you were to live in a country like this, you know, like Morocco, like Egypt, like Algeria, could you expect to to spend the same as me? I think yes, if you have similar kids. I think I I live a little bit below average, okay?

[00:18:26]I think if especially if you're coming straight from the West, remember I'm not coming straight from the West, you might end up spending more than me.

[00:18:33]Uh depends how frugal you are, etc. If you have the same amount of kids as me, the same ages, then I think you might spend 25% more than me, to be honest.

[00:18:42]So, that takes you to about 1,100 pounds a month or something instead of my 880. Um also, you send your kids to school, you got three kids sending them to the private school, that would add something a little bit, but you're definitely below 1,500 pounds a month. What does that mean for your life? Like think about that. A minimum wage job in the UK would pay you um more than 80 1,500 pounds a month, right? So, think about that, man. Like that's game-changing if of course you can get that remote job or you could work as a freelancer doing you know if you do freelance projects for people and each project you charge 1500 pounds then that's your monthly done if you get one project right likewise if you have a business your business doesn't have to be a tremendously thriving business for you to live in these kind of countries and that's why you know also I think it's part of Baraka you know to be honest with you there's more Baraka in a Muslim country right there's more Baraka in the money that you have in the food that you eat etc and that plays a role as well we can't discount that so it's crazy to say but what this means after our analysis is that if you're moving to a country which is similar cost to Algeria you're talking about come with about 10,000 pounds you know to be safe for furnishing and then just have a buffer and all of that 10,000 pounds depending on your risk tolerance and then you know put aside at least 1,000 pounds a month just be conservative and you're good right mean for your hijra that's a big deal now a lot of you will be wondering okay it's easy for you to say that 1,000 pound is fine and just work remotely but how do I work remotely how do I start a business or get a job that will allow me to move to the Muslim world and you know live in the way I've described well I made a video on those two income streams that can allow you to live this so go and watch that video next go ahead