Meaning:
Money acquired without effort or risk. The phrase is applied to any
unexpected benefits, but especially financial ones.
Background:
The first time that the expression "Pennies from heaven" came into the public
consciousness was on the release of the 1936 film, starring Bing Crosby.
It wasn't coined by the film's writers though, having been used in print a
few years earlier, in Abraham Burstein's book Ghetto Messenger, 1928.
- www.phrases.org.uk [edited]
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My friend Monica was a dividend-hound and invested in a few old-as-the-hills
telecom, energy, and fastfood companies. She called their quarterly payouts
pennies from heaven, not because they were unexpected but she was thankful. She
always plowed them back into the same stocks. This was the dot-com bubble era and
I laughed at her 2% to 6% return but she insisted that dividends do not lie and
great profit is made by waiting.
