Pennies from (Almost Certainly Late) Heaven.

I'm about to be delayed-paid for living in San Francisco.

I worked for a company in '20 and '21 that was supposed to be making payments to an SF health care ordinance fund in my name, to the tune of a little over $3 an hour. Without going into too much detail it was supposed the help underwrite the cost of health care in the City. Turns out, this company was not making the payments, for the nearly 2 years I was there.

So I get a notice last week saying hey, we owe you $6700. You'll be getting that. No other details like, are they going to try to direct deposit it, when will the payment be made, yadda yadda. So I reach out to the number in the letter you're supposed to call if you have questions. Which I do. I'm 2 weeks away from a Vegas trip and you're trying give me basically a full trip save (before taxes)? Fuck yes I have questions.

I call the number. It's one of those horrid robo-helper things, and this one is several levels more horrid that the usual ones. None of the pre-loaded categories make sense for my thing. You have to have a PIN that would have been active 3 years ago when I left the company, and who the fuck remembers that. Endless looping around with a robo-twat telling me I need to give it more information. Hell. Finally by some miracle I get through to a real person. They've never heard of this payment.

Bitches and whores.

Finally after wrangling with the 1-800 number and the website for a week I found out I'm getting a check that will be mailed...on 12/15. Friday. I leave for Vegas the following Thursday. With the weekend that really only gives 3 mail days for it to get to me on time, in the busiest mail time of the year. VERY unlikely to get to me before the trip.

So the save is still going to be the save, but knowing that check, after taxes probably clearing around $4500-$5000, will be there when get home will allow me to be more cavalier with the credit card in town. I'll have around $6000 available when I get wheels down in town, minus out the probably $1500 in room charge and nightly holds from FB and Cosmo, and I'll have $4500-ish open at the start of the trip. Then I make a payment on the Friday I'm in town for another $1300 more, so let's just say by Monday I'll have something over $5K available to spend for the last 4 days of the trip, on top of the $1K cash I'll have in pocket.

Math! Just what you look for in your Vegas blogs.

I could also take the Apple card with me with another $8K of spendable but that seems a little excessive. Frankly if I don't need to use any of the heaven pennies when I come back that would be the ideal, but realistically knowing it'll be there takes some of the pressure off of worrying about another financial ass-blasting as happened on the June trip. Even if I do pound the card a bit I'll be able to pay it all back. Having a bit of savings again would be novel, too even if it's just a down payment on the inevitable April trip.

I'll take it all, at least until tax time, when I'll give a lot of it back.