My wife was home most of yesterday, so I had no chance to blog here. Early in the evening I had myself a bath, and emerged to find that she had disappeared. I'm sure her two sons knew something, but I did not deign to enquire of them.
Yesterday was a financially stressful day.
For starters, I discovered that both the monthly mortgage debit and the cheque for our annual utilities payment to the City of Surrey both were negotiated that day, but there was just over an $80 insufficiency to cover both hits.
Fortunately, I suppose, the mortgage was the first to be applied, so that got paid. But the annual utilities cheque bounced.
And my banking institution hit me with something like a $48 NSF charge on top of that ─ the damned rats.
I don't get my monthly pension until sometime next week, so unless a miracle presents itself, I can not make that payment before then.
I am hoping that because of COVID-19 shutdowns, the City of Surrey does have an option to delay making this payment for 90 days. Its original due date had been April 2nd, and our cheque was dropped off at city hall that day.
So maybe I won't be hearing from them, and once I get my pension next week I can make the payment.
We had the money in our account originally. Had the cheque even been negotiated two days ago, all would have been well. Then I would have seen that the account was that $80 short for the mortgage, and I could have done something about it.
The second stressful strike yesterday came when I was watching some T.V. late in the morning with my younger brother. A telephone message on the house line was left from the insurers for our home insurance. The agent calling said that our current coverage will end June 14, and she wanted to learn if there had been any sort of changes here since last year.
She also said that the new package was being prepared and would get sent out next week.
I was in no frame of mind to take the call, nor have I called her back.
Complicating everything is the need for secrecy about these matters from my brother. However, I can only say that it is vital ─ I am not going to detail why. Let's just say that he has a hugely vested financial interest in the house.
The third stressor arrived after my brother had sought some bed rest in the early afternoon yesterday ─ my wife got a call on her cellphone from the bank that holds our mortgage.
This was a call that my brother absolutely was not to know anything of.
The woman calling indicated that our five-year mortgage agreement was coming to a close in early July, and she wanted to talk about renewing the mortgage.
This became quite involved. I was eating at the time, as was my wife ─ she was actually holding her phone for me to speak into because my hands were very greasy.
My wife asked the woman to call us back in a half hour.
Meantime, I kept hoping that my brother would not emerge from his bedroom during the returned call.
Well, he did come downstairs before the returned call; but happily, he then left us for the afternoon. I was free to speak openly to the woman.
This was to take a few back and forth calls, for as I said, the matter was rather complex.
I finally settled upon a three-year mortgage arrangement that also includes the very large line of credit that my wife foolishly exhausted through her gambling addiction last year. According to the bank agent, all I have been doing is paying an interest billing ─ the principal on the line of credit was not being reduced.
The new mortgage agreement is to include the line of credit. We'll be paying a larger monthly mortgage payment; but in view of what we are paying now for both the mortgage and the interest on the line of credit, the new mortgage payment will actually be smaller overall.
The gal wanted my wife and I to both come to our nearest bank branch to sign the documents, but my wife balked. She exclaimed to me that she has driven by that branch and there are large line-ups of people awaiting entry into the bank.
The agent had said that we could do this anytime after 2:00 p.m. today, or else tomorrow.
My wife tends to spend her free time ─ notably her weekends ─ somewhere in Vancouver (such is my sorry marriage). I imagine that she also knew that she was not going to be here today during the banks afternoon hours, but I did not know that at the time.
She had wondered to me why the agent did not just E-mail us the documents. We don't have a functioning printer, but her youngest son can use one where he works.
However, he was enjoying his 'weekend' ─ i.e., he has Wednesdays and Thursdays off work, and would not be returning to work until Friday afternoon. Obviously he would not be able to print out the paperwork before then.
So last evening I composed an E-mail to the bank agent, asking if she could E-mail us the documents. I further explained ─ I fibbed ─ that my wife had promised a friend of hers who runs a restaurant (some distance away from here) that she would help the friend over the weekend.
And as a result, she was probably going to be absent until late Monday.
In view, then, of when my stepson would be printing out the paperwork, I would not have it in my hands until late Friday evening. My wife would probably be gone by then ─ would it be okay if we didn't E-mail the agent the signed paperwork until after my wife was back home?
Apparently that worked ─ the agent was okay with this. After all, the current mortgage agreement is still valid until early July ─ there is no rush.
Anyway, with all of this hassle going on, and personal issues as well, it was definitely a bad day for me yesterday.
We are under considerable further financial duress because my wife has hardly any income now that the restaurant she works at is closed to the public, and is only taking take-out or delivery orders.
She had gone part-time in February due to what I believe is serious tendinitis in one of her elbows ─ her doctor prescribed the part-time status, and further said that she was not to continue working in the kitchen as she had been. Instead, she was only to perform server duties.
So in mid-February my wife applied for Employment Insurance (E.I.) benefits.
Well, as yet, she has received nothing.
And her application was made a month or more before Canada invited a flood of E.I. benefit claims by offering the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB).
My wife applied for that, too, hoping that at least she might receive some recognition. After all, she cannot visit any Service Canada offices to enquire about her E.I. delay. And anytime she tries to phone them, a message declares that due to the sheer number of calls being placed to them, her call cannot be put into a queue, and so she must call back later (and hope for the best).
But she has received nothing through the CERB, either. Yet friends of hers who applied for it a month or more after my wife had applied for her E.I. in February, have already received three CERB payments.
On top of this, I filed our income tax returns on March 8 in paper ─ that is, March 8 was the day that I dropped off our paper tax returns at the local Tax Services Office.
Usually our annual refunds only take a month or so to appear as direct deposits.
But there has been absolutely nothing. I am expecting that hardly anyone is working at the taxation centres processing paper tax returns. So ours are languishing in limbo in a storage area.
And we only have my monthly pension income as anything that is reliable.
My wife's boss is also her friend, so my wife can still get in some kitchen work even though she is not supposed to be performing that sort of toil. What choice has she? She cannot serve anyone when the public cannot enter the restaurant and order a meal. She either works on occasion in the kitchen, or she does not work at all and has absolutely no income.
It galls me that she legitimately applied for E.I. back in mid-February before the government opened the floodgates of financial relief to almost everyone, yet her legitimate E.I. claim has been frozen or ignored while the few people actually working at Service Canada try to deal with the untold hundred of thousands of new E.I. (CERB) claims.
I learned today that our province of B.C. is opening up the opportunity for residents unable to work (because of the COVID-19 shutdowns) to be able to apply for a one-time $1,000 B.C. Emergency Benefit for Workers ─ folks can apply on May 1.
That sounded very hopeful for us.
However, one of the requirements, I discovered, is that the applicant must have filed for ─ and been accepted as qualifying for ─ the federal CERB.
My wife has bloody well filed and qualifies for it, but she has no proof that her application has been accepted. It has been weeks, and she has heard nothing from the feds.
So she probably cannot even apply for this provincial one-time benefit, even though she has as much legitimate need as will most of the other people who will be applying.
It is after 8:00 p.m. ─ I don't want to blog anymore today.
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