January 2025 Budget Report (Spain & Albania)

February 9, 2025 Mark

January 2025 has come to a close, so it is time for another monthly budget report!

Did our expensive final week in Spain and relocation to Sarande, Albania ruin our bottom line for the month?

Short answer – Yes.

Read the cautionary tale of how five days in Barcelona, Spain can ruin a slow travel monthly budget.

Accommodation: $955.29 USD

Five nights in Barcelona, Spain ($396.50 USD), one night in a Tirana, Albania airport hotel ($51.80 USD), and twenty-three nights in our first Sarande, Albania Airbnb ($506.99 USD) combine for a higher than normal accommodation total for us.

Our Barcelona stay really skewed things!

Activities: $78.34 USD

Despite our complaints about admission prices in Barcelona, Spain, we keep things under control. But still, this total came from only 3 sets of entrance tickets! We could have easily tripled this amount if we showed less restraint.

Alcohol: $71.12 USD

A relatively dry month in the whole scheme of things, especially since alcohol is more expensive in Albania. Believe it or not, a big chunk of this expense was for a bottle of “cheap” whiskey ($17.82 USD) used for to make hot toddies to help us get over our colds during our first week in Sarande. Perhaps we should have listed that as a medicinal expense. 🙂

Eating Out: $546.03 USD

An expensive month, especially since eating out is relatively inexpensive in Albania. $319.57 USD of this total was just for eating out in Barcelona!

Groceries: $559.07 USD

A relatively expensive month, but groceries are a little more expensive on average in Albania. And the monthly grocery bill is always a little higher when we first relocate to a new long-stay Airbnb because we stock up on things we know we will use.

Medical: $49.66 USD

We purchased a bunch of OTC medicines to help with our colds in early January, so this total was a little higher than it would have been normally.

Miscellaneous: $122.66 USD

A higher total than normal for us, but we needed replacement clothing, replacement shoes (2nd hand), and gifts for family.

Supplies: $43.84 USD

Nothing too crazy here, aside from normal apartment supplies and a couple of cheap dollar-store kitchen and electronics additions to help make daily life easier in our Airbnb.

Transportation: $454.71 USD

We had a big month for transportation expenses, but we covered a lot of miles!

We took flights from Santiago de Compostela to Barcelona ($143.51 USD), metro tickets from the airport to Barcelona Center ($11.41 USD), commuter train tickets from Barcelona Center to the airport ($10.09 USD), flights from Barcelona, Spain to Tirana, Albania ($241.56 USD), a taxi ride to the Tirana South & North bus station ($12.56 USD), and bus tickets from Tirana, Albania to Sarande ($35.58 USD).

Thankfully the transportation costs for the next couple of months should be much cheaper!

Utilities/Upkeep: $59.13 USD

Most of these expenses are for general personal care stuff, eSIM data top-offs ($14.84 USD), our MyRVmail mail holding fee ($20.75 USD), and shoe inserts ($16.69 USD).

Total Expenses for January 2025 = $2,939.85 USD

Here is a summary of our January 2025 expenses:

Ouch!

We were nearly $450 USD over our monthly budget goal of $2,500 USD. Had we flown directly to Albania instead of stopping in Barcelona, we almost certainly would have been under budget.

But still, we were happy that we visited Barcelona so we could see what all of the hubbub was about.

And the damage to our monthly expense average wasn’t all that bad.

Our average monthly spend is now $1,998.22 USD (August 2024 – January 2025) for our third year of travel. For the curious, here are links to our expense summaries for Year 1 and Year 2.

We have two more months in Sarande, Albania planned so we hope our expenses will decrease to reflect that. That said, we have old friends visiting in February!

We’ll see if our collective debauchery busts our budget.

Until next time…

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