I did the tax forms myself when living abroad, precisely because I didn't earn enough income to afford the $1000 cost (in fact, it was perhaps twice this, in Switzerland, based on my cursory Googling at the time). It routinely took over a week of working days, which was only possible because I had a sympathetic boss and generous vacation time.

It's also quite stressful, since there are many ambiguous questions, most of the proprietary tax software is ill-equipped to consider the situation of an American living abroad, and a wrong answer can subject you to audit.