We’ve been swamped since our last post and haven’t had much time to write about our most recent goings on. So I admit that reporting on our March 2025 expenses in late April is a little awkward.
But there is a good reason!
In early April, we left Sarande (Albania), traveled onward to Berat (Albania) for a couple of nights, flew to Rome (Italy) for 4 nights, and finally flew back to the USA on April 10. And since then, it has been a steady stream of activities with friends and relatives.
But finally, I have a few moments to wrap up what may be our last travel budget report for a while. Now that we are back in the USA, for what may be an extended period, we will be staying with family. So there will be many unique non-travel-related expenses (and savings) that go along with that.
So we’ll probably pause our normal monthly travel budget reports until we get back into full-time travel. That said, I am considering writing a series of posts on how we save money in the USA, viewed through the lens of repatriating full-time travelers.
But we’ll see how that goes.
In the meantime, let’s review the financial impact of our last month in Sarande, Albania, to see how everything turned out.
Accommodation: $654.27 USD
Another reasonable month of living expenses on the Ionian coast.
We toured some of the more out-of-the-way places in southern Albania with a friend, so we included our overnight stays in this category. This included our one night in Peshkepi ($20.93 USD), our mountain guesthouse room/board for one night in Permet ($76.92 USD), and one night in the city of Korça ($21.90 USD).
The remainder was to pay for parking near Gjipe beach. ($2.20 USD).
Alcohol: $113.75 USD
One of our boozier months in recent memory. That said, the majority of this was casual social drinking with friends or purchases for celebratory gatherings we were invited to.
Eating Out: $428.50 USD
Another reasonable month of restaurant expenses.
When a typical local meal out usually costs between $5 – $10 USD per person, it is easy to keep this expense category under control.
Groceries: $304.08 USD
Another stable month of grocery expenses in the low $300 USD range.
By this point, we have pretty much mastered finding the best deals on products we like the most. The key is to buy with a bias towards local product availability and be opportunistic on good deals.
Pretty good for two people though.
Medical: $1.10 USD
Just some OTC medical supplies.
Miscellaneous: $33.97 USD
We purchased a gift and had to replace a small ceramic lamp we accidentally broke.
Supplies: $12.93 USD
Just basic apartment supplies to keep the place operational.
Transportation: $119.31 USD
We rented a car for 1 week ($77.22 USD) for our southern Albania tour and had to pay to fuel it ($41.49 USD for our share).
Utilities/Upkeep: $32.24 USD
As usual, we paid for our monthly MyRVmail service ($20.75 USD) and eSIM-related expenses ($11.49 USD).
Total Expenses for March 2025 = $1,822.10 USD
Here is a summary of our March 2025 expenses:
It’s nice to have a sub-$2000 USD month for the first time in a while. And we didn’t really make any adjustments to make this happen.
Our average monthly spend is now $1,992.05 USD (August 2024 – March 2025) for our third year of travel. For the curious, here are links to our expense summaries for Year 1 and Year 2.
Looking forward to our April 2025 expenses, only about a third of the month will be spent in “travel mode”, with the rest being in “preparation for life in the USA” mode. We aren’t 100% sure we’ll report on all of that as a specific budget post, but we hope to describe the costs involved with our exit from Albania, and then finally from Rome.
Until next time…
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