Flush, and Rut.

Save for Vegas trip just became a laugher.

Wasn't really expecting it because I thought the IRS was going to pirate it, but I got my Fed and state tax refunds today, nearly $1900. Good in a way in that I got it, bad in a way in that I'm probably still going to owe a significant amount of back taxes from 2018. My "buy some time" tactic of challenging the levy may have worked too well, I was just trying to get through the holidays w/o having to deal with it. They're still looking at it. WAY outside chance that they may drop it, much more likely that it'll come due soon enough. If I can string it out until July when my debt is paid off then it won't be too painful.

In any case, once I get paid Friday I'll have well over $5K in the bank, with another $2K coming from the March work bonus and hopefully another $1200 in Bidenbux. I may not have to do any kind of traditional Vegas save at all for April, which would be nice.

Speaking of Vegas April, Southwest is jacking me around and changed both of my flight times for the trip. The first one cost me a day of PTO, I was supposed to be on a 3:40p flight on the Wednesday, allowing me to do a more or less full day of work, but now the go time is 11:40a, so I had to make it a 36 hour PTO hit instead of 24. The out flight is now a couple hours later too, which is actually fine, can sleep in an extra hour before checking out. The perils of booking a flight 3 months in advance during a pandemic, but the round trip price is worth the trouble.

Still locked into Aria. No change on comps since Xmas. Rate too good to pass up, could go with something like Venetian for a couple hundy more but then there would be logistical problems of being so far north. Wynn is back to crazy rates again, would be like $1200 for the same nights there so they're out. Don't think I'm going to be able to beat the combo of perfect location and $400 all in for 5 nights at a 5-star, even as boring as I find Aria.

TBH I'm not really thinking about Vegas much. It's still 2 months until the trip and there's no reason at all to get hype about it or start doing the detailed planning. Right now it's just plugging through the weeks at work and doing fuck all on the weekends, with no change in sight. The definition of a rut. With the extra cash I could slip in a quick weekend trip somewhere before April but going to all the flight trouble and expense for a 2 full day trip just doesn't seem worth it. I need 4 day minimum to get into a trip anymore. Quickies just too short/stressful.

So, I have a bunch on money and nothing to do with it until April.

Boring.