Dalyan – 2nd April

Thursday 2nd April was a little frustrating for me, mainly with first world problems. The first one was that I was trying to get my Jo Lo –  Resort Experts business page up to more than 500 followers on Facebook so that I could start to earn a bit of money from it. I was still on less than 400 despite having invited loads of my Facebook friends. How it works on Facebook is that once you’re invited to follow a page, you can view it but I can’t ask again unless the invite is declined. It means that it doesn’t count towards my stats and I can’t do anything about it except to keep asking all of the people who are not following to follow in posts like this. So, if you are not following already please do, if really helps me!!! https://www.facebook.com/share/1H3GWv8k4z/

The next minor inconvenience was waiting to speak to Sam, one of the owners at Resort Experts, to discuss some paid work over the Easter weekend. He’d offered paid work to get all the Supplier information held on a spreadsheet in to the new Zone database. He’d done it using AI but of course it now needed checking and all the gaps filling in. It was quite a tedious task but I love those kinds of jobs and I was up for it. Geoff – the Benidorm Resort Expert, had turned up at Sam’s house and prevented our Teams call to get started.
My third frustration was not knowing what I was going to be paid this month and when the paid day would be. As there had been changes to the process recently, I still was unable to work it out and I had to expect nothing. I have to plan for my 50,000 lira (£850) per month to go in to my Turkish bank account for residency rules purposes which is quite time consuming. I don’t earn that in a month so I have to work out how much short I will be each month so Captain Caveman or other income can top it up. I had worked out that if I could sell just 6 books per day, I wouldn’t need to worry about the dates I would get paid from Resort Experts holiday bookings. My aim for the rest of this year was to write more books and increase book sales so that I could spend less time budgeting and worrying about money.
I warmed up bolognese for a late lunch and got on with quite a bit of work in the afternoon. I’d had a referral from a friend for a family holiday which I was looking at. Turkey would’ve been an ideal destination were it not for needing morning flights so we decided Spain or the Balearic Islands suited the family better.
I finally spoke to Sam about my weekend job and it was agreed I would start tomorrow. The job was easy but time consuming and what a lot of people would call boring – I liked those types of jobs and could do it easily.
My final frustration was a shopping and budget related one; as there was no meat left when I went shopping yesterday, I had to go back today. This meant I had less zero spend days and inevitably it’s likely to make me spend more as I saw things I would like or on offer.
Here’s what I bought with prices in lira:

Migros Supermarket
Popcorn 39.95
1 Bounty 47.90
Frozen green beans 87.46
Pesto 122.21
Mozzarella cheese 179.90
1kg Chicken breasts 202.35
400g Beef mince 385.95
Total spent 1065.72 lira (£18.06)

Outdoors it was incredibly blustery but dry after quite a storm last night. Everything was covered in red sand which had blown in from a dessert. It was weird and everything looked dirty. The Shell petrol station, near Migros, was being knocked down too. I hadn’t noticed until after I had scoffed the Bounty, with a cup of earl grey tea, that I had been charged more than it had been priced at – that would teach me for not sticking to the Slimming World plan.
I decided to watch something on Netflix and had popcorn and cheese for dinner as I was too tired to cook.

Gratitude List
1. Getting through a frustrating day by staying positive
2. Agreeing to take on a paid weekend job over Easter to boost the holiday fund
3. Having friends recommend me to their friends and colleagues.