PFD weekend!

Well, this past weekend was PFD weekend, and everyone is still in a very good mood. PFD stands for Permanent Fund Dividend, and it is the source of the famous money you get just for living in Alaska. People plan for this all year round, so this weekend many dreams finally came true. People use it to pay for vacations, college, home renovations...well, basically anthing you use money for. Everyone I work with has been talking about it for the past two weeks - they all have been planning for months, but some were still deciding what to do with their money.

We had the dumb luck to be out on a random shopping jaunt this past weekend, out in the midst of the PFD shopping hordes, and somehow we lived to tell the tale! We mainly wanted to check out some stores that we were told were pretty cool - most of which were pretty good, some of which weren't. Now, Anchorage is not that busy of a town, not compared to most places on the east coast. But last Saturday, everyplace we went was mobbed! I think every rural resident of the state drove in to town to spend the PFD.

There is a fairly strict set of requirements to qualify to get the PFD, and we don't qualify. We probably also won't next year either. But that's OK - it's for semi-long term residents and we'll get there eventually. (PS Unless we won't. Today's stock market nonsense supposedly really whacked the Permanent Fund a good one. Well, a year is a looooong time in finance - let alone two years. We'll see.)