It's Not A Bender, It's A Lifestyle.

No real need for a plan post. Here's my plan post. Sunday: If all goes well with Southwest, I should be on the ground by about 9a, in a cab and over to Aria, and depending on the check-in sitch may be able to head straight up to the room, or may have to dump the bag and chill for a while. Hopefully the former. In whatever case, I can start to unwind, maybe find someplace to sit and watch one of the early NFL games, then scope out the lunch deals. If I'm not checked in will probably stay close to Aria so maybe Proper Eats or something at Cosmo. Other than that my day is free so commence the gambles and drank. Monday: No day plans, maybe a sleep in day after the long day prior. Shits and giggle in the daytime then probably freshen up later afternoon to head down to MB for the 1st free (minus tip) food reservation of the week. Love the Bolognese and it will be ate, mate. After dinner, tits to the breeze. See where the night takes me. Tuesday: Xmas Eve. No plans. I am Cowboy. Wedne...

In just 10 short days I will be on the ground in Vegas. It almost feels a little unreal. It's been so, damn, long since the last trip. It's been tough to get a heat on for this one but it's here now. Good room, great resort, good location, should be a good time all around. I so need a week to just fucking relax and get out of my own head. Was thinking about adding a night on the back end if I got an even bigger bonus in my review today. No more bonus but a 6% raise, which is better in the long run. So the trip is locked. I committed to "just" 5 days at the start of this after the Junepocalypse and I'm sticking to it. I really can't get myself into too much financial trouble on this one and that's going to make it more enjoyable. If I blow through the $5K in cash I'll take, fine, but no more lasting damage than that will be done. No more coming home to $7K in CC debt on top of cash broke. My SF weekend adventures for the month are over too, which wi...

Man, has it been a stretch since I've been able to say that. My long harsh Vegas drought is close to coming to an end. Less than 3 weeks now until I get release, and relief, from the daily drab. No changes to the arrangements. Aria it shall be. Black Friday deals came through and nothing remotely in the resort/rate range of Aria. MGM rates have gone way up too so it's Aria. Fine. Not every trip has to be a room blow out like the April trip was. That was a special occasion and this is just...another Xmas. Less than $100/night for a Stay Well view room in a 5-Star is fine by me. Still the same reservation regime, just the two dinner rezzies at Carama and Jean Georges, and then I'll grab bar seats for whatever else I need while there. I looked at shows, as Vegas.com has their normal buy $75 get $100 thing on, but there just aren't two shows I'd even want to see anymore in Vegas. I've seen the ones I want to see and the rest are either boomer-bait or otherwise unint...

The money pressure is...off. Decided to stop paying 24% interest every month on my hard-to-kill CC debt and took out a loan against my 401k at 8.5%. Will pay off the card this month and still have a little extra to put toward the Vegas cash fund.  I will pay back the loan via payroll deductions (painless) over 4 years and all the interest goes back into my 401k account, so essentially I'm paying myself the interest instead of some bank in Omaha. With this I can get back to living within the means on the CC, paying it off every month and in the long run saving money lost to ridiculous CC interest. So the $2K I'm banking here for cash, along with the work bonus coming in early December knocks the Vegas cash save dead. Won't have to scrimp too much or get creative over the next month to make the save number, as I was going to have to otherwise. Also won't have to murder the CC in town as I'll have a full $1K per day (or maybe a little more) while there. Is this ideal, ...

  Discounts and freebies, the 2024 Xmas edish. -5 nights at Freddies Aria: Stay Well Strip View King, $442, 3 nights comped, would be $2328 rack rate, savings of $1886 (youch). -$50 Freeplay, $50 Resort Credit on booking package, $100 value. -$230 in Rewards Points (resort credit), ~$200 in Slot Dollars from MGM Rewards, value $430. Short list but a sweet one, and all from being a loyal MGM slave  member. $2416 saved or earned. A good haul, maybe top 5 all time? Dunno, but it makes it a doable trip whereas in this crappy financial year it may not have been possible. The room rate the star of the show, as usual. Sure, I could have stayed at a similar rate at quite a few resorts on strip this time, but not in this nice a room at this nice of a resort. With nearly $300 in RC avail, if I play my cards right that can be 3 great meals, and with the $250 in FP I will probably sit down at a triple play VP machine on dollars and try to turn it into $4K minimum. 40 days, 40 days.

Life is minimizing my Vegas. It's only going to be three trips this year. I'm accustomed, since 2014, to doing four or more. The financial realities of my life now make that difficult. Last Xmas I did OK on money, paid it forward into the Birthday trip. Birthday trip I did OK on money, paid it forward into the June trip. Then the June trip happened. I still am not, and won't be this year, fully recovered from that ass-whupping. So no late summer, early fall trip this year. 6 months of drought. I'm not OK with that. I've come to really need the time off and release that comes with a regular, every few month Vegas trip cycle. As I'm now less than 2 months from a trip I'm starting to emerge from the funk, but the funk was real. August/September were some dark days , stuck in a shitty job with no prospect for any real time off until December. I can now see the light at the end of the tunnel, but may find myself in a similar tunnel next year. The realities now wi...

I'm done. Done buying stuff before the Xmas trip. I gave up this week on any fantasies about getting the MGM CC paid off, and bought everything I will need to be Vegas-ready. Started with the return flight today. Fares just weren't coming down, and at basically a month and a half out I was concerned that they never were going to drop, so I bit the bullet and pulled the trigger on United for the come-back. $145 one way. Was able to use some points so a little less painful than it otherwise would have been. 4pm flight so not ideal, but I can just add late checkout to my rezzy and it'll be fine. The other reasonable option was Frontier and just, no. So the total cost of flights is about $315. The price of flying on the Sunday before and Friday after Xmas. Also picked up some new jeans for the trip, some new glasses to replace my 3-year old pair, and various needed underwear items. The glasses are a bit bougie, Gucci's, but I'm wearing Prada now so whatev. They are no-l...