Alright.

The bonus is a given, it's $2600 - I work in software development and my employer is very established and this is a near certainty.

The funds we have to carry for about a month of gas and groceries is $1100. This depends on how quickly EI kicks in.

Otherwise, I felt it would be great to pick up a few baby items (~$400). We already have a recent baby, and don't need much. I would be carrying bills (not paying for the month to allow these 'wiggle' funds) in an amount now with the unexpected koodo tab payoff of about $1100.

The idea is that:

Option A)

Don't pay bills - $1100 owing.

Wiggle room money - $1100 (gas, groceries w/o spouse's income for a few weeks)

Hopefully EI does a little bit of backpay, and the unpaid bills can get tackled with income in the future.

Option B)

Get a loan with FairStone ($5k)

Pay back amount not needed (at least $2400)

Pay back remainder with bonus ( and interest for 3 months ~$250)

Risk of possible concerns regarding T&C regarding paying back the loan and actually incurring additional expenses due to predatory interest.

The numbers aren't super clear but we just need to be able to keep up with the day to day while without income, and with the additional bills and owing taxes (I know this doesn't need to be paid in lump sum, and I can more than likely do payments - return is $1k due to wife's employer being lazy with financials).

So the real question is, is incurring late payments on a few bills sufficiently negative to get into a possibly risky scenario with an alternative lender.