When should I open a “Line of credit” at my bank?
With the information you have given, I would say never. Remember the banker is a salesman, and the line of credit is the product. If you don't need to borrow the money for something specific, then you don't need the line of credit in the first place. Even if you did need something I would tell you to save up and pay cash for it. On the tax advantage: There is none, in the US you can deduct your mortgage interest on your taxes but it's not a tax credit it's a tax deductions. Let me explain further: You spend $10,000 on mortgage interest, and you're in the 25% tax bracket. You send the bank $10,000 in return you get at tax savings of $2500. You are still in the hole $7500 You would have been better off not taking out the loan in the first place. On the Emergency Fund: You should have 3 - 6 months of expenses in cash, like a money market account.  This money isn't for investing, it's like insurance, and you don't make money on insurance. The last thing you want to do is have to go into debt right in the middle of an emergency. Say you lost your job, the last thing you would want to do is borrow money, right at the time you have no income to pay it back. The bank is under no obligation to maintain you credit limit and can without notice reduce it, they can in most cases call the loan balance due in full with little or no notice as well. Both of those are likely scenarios if the bank were to become aware of the fact that you were unemployed. There are two basic types of lines of credit typically offered at a retail bank: Overdraft line of credit is essentially a revolving personal loan that you can draw upon as needed or automatically draw on when you overdraw on your checking account. Typically with a commercial bank there is a fee to use the automatic overdraft in addition to interest. Some credit unions don't charge a fee. Interest is typically computed using average daily balance. A Home equity line of credit is a revolving loan that is secured against your home. Interest on home-improvement related expenses is deductible. Since the bank gets a lien on your home, the rates are low. Sometimes you can even get debit cards that will hit the line. I think these are a good idea if: A line of credit is a poor substitute for an emergency fund.   Banks typically have a clause that allows them to stop further withdrawals from your line of credit if there is a change of vaguely defined type.   For example, if you lose your job they can stop you from making withdrawals from your line-of-credit. "The only really good reason to open a line of credit is that you want to buy something that you don't have money for. That's got its own risks - see plenty of other places to see warnings about not borrowing too much. The only other reason is that you might want to use a line of credit as your emergency fund. The usual way of doing this is to keep the money in an easily acccessible savings account - but such accounts usually pay rather now interest, and there is an argument for instead investing your emergency money in a higher-interest but less-accessible fund and using a line of credit to tide you over until you can extract the money. I'm worried about the comment that you can ""deduct my interest on my tax returns"". That is usually only possible if you are borrowing money to invest. It sounds as if your banker is going to persuade you to not only open a line of credit, but then invest that money in something. Be aware that this kind of 'leveraging' is much higher risk than investing money you already own." I have a line of credit that I have attached to my checking account in case of an overdraft.   Since I haven't over drafted my checking account in 4 years, I typically borrow the minimum $5 from the line of credit and then pay it back the next day.   This usually costs me a couple of cents and I have to do it twice a year, but it keeps the account active and they don't close it down.
"What is a good bank to use for storing my pay? Preferrably one that has free student accounts. Can I save money from my paychecks   directly to a Canadian bank Otherwise, can I connect my bank account   to my Canadian account online? Any (almost...) bank in the US has free college checking accounts. If the bank you entered doesn't - exit, and step into the one next door which most likely will. The big names - Wells Fargo, Bank Of America, Chase, Bank of the West, Union Bank, Citi etc - all have it. Also, check your local credit union. Do I need any ID to open a bank account? I have Canadian citizenship and a J-1 visa Bring your passport and a student card/driving license (usually 2 ID's required). What form of money should I take with me? Cash? Should I apply for a   debit card? Can I use my Canadian credit card for purchasing anything   in the states? (Canadian dollar is stronger than US dollar currently,   so this could be to my advantage?) There's some fuss going on about debit cards right now. Some big banks (Bank of America, notably) decided to charge fees for using it. Check it, most of the banks are not charging fees, and as far as I know none of the credit unions are charging. So same thing - if they charge fees for debit card - step out and move on to the next one down the street. Using debit card is pretty convenient, cash is useful for small amount and in places that don't accept cards. If you're asking about how to move money from Canada - check with your local (Canadian) bank about the conversion rates and fees for transfers, check cashing, ATM, card swipes, etc - and see which one is best for you. When I moved large amounts of money across the border, I chose wire transfer because it was the cheapest, but for small amounts many times during the period of your stay it may be more expensive. You can definitely use your Canadian credit/debit card in the States, you'll be charged some fee by your credit card company, and of course the conversion rate. How much tax does I have to pay at the end of my internship? Let's assume one is earning $5,000 per month plus a one time $5,000 housing   stipend, all before taxes. Will I be taxed again by the Canadian   government? $5K for internship? Wow... You need to talk to a tax specialist, there's probably some treaty between the US and Canada on that, and keep in mind that the State of California taxes your income as well. What are some other tips I can use to save money in the California? California is a very big place. If you live in SF - you'll save a lot by using the MUNI, if your internship is in LA - consider buying an old clunker if you want to go somewhere. If you're in SD - just enjoy the weather, you won't get it in Canada. You'll probably want a ""pay as you go"" wireless phone plan. If your Canadian phone is unlocked GSM - you can go to any AT&T or T-Mobile store and get a pre-paid SIM for free. Otherwise, get a prepaid phone at any groceries store. It will definitely be cheaper than paying roaming charges to your Canadian provider. You can look at my blog (I'm writing from California), I accumulated a bunch of saving tips there over the years I'm writing it." "Pete B mentioned adjusting your payments using the Debt Snowball Method and I agree it is one possible solution, another being the Debt Avalanche Method. Here is a link that describes both.  There was a time in my past when I had 17 credit lines open totaling about $12,000. If I had paid them the way the banks asked (minimum monthly payments) it would have taken decades to pay off. Then I was shown these two techniques and as a result I was able pay them down rapidly and close all but 2 lines within 5 years. Like others I am going to say that if you already own your house free and clear never Never NEVER put a loan on it unless the loan is (a) to improve the house, or (b) a life & death emergency. If you get sick or fired and miss even a single payment on a HELOC you could lose your house forever and that just plain sucks. Not only will you then be forced into renting a place (money down the drain) but your credit rating will take such a huge hit it will be years (if ever) before you can even try and buy a new home.  Debts come and go, as do the ""toys"" and other things we buy with that debt. Homes are security & stability for tomorrow. Never give that up for a little ease & comfort today. UPDATE: I had to go looking for it but here is some software that I used all those years ago to figure out my strategy for paying down all my credit bills. It's a bit clunky but it's super easy to use plus it has some other variations on snowball and avalanche methods as well. I definitely found it helpful." "You should be able to pay back whenever; what's the point of an arbitrary timeline? Cash flow is the life blood of any business.  When banks loan money, they are expecting a steady cash flow back. If you just pay back ""whenever"" - the bank has no idea what they'll be getting back month-to-month.  When they can set the terms of the loan (length, rate, payment amount), they know how much cash flow they expect to get.  What does [the term of the loan] even mean and what difference in the world does it make? In addition to the predictable cash flow needs above, setting a term for the loan determines how long their money will be tied up in the loan. The longer a bank has money tied up in a loan, the more risk there is that the borrower will default, so the bank will require a greater return (interest rate) for that extra risk. What you have described is effectively a revolving line of credit.  The bank let you borrow money arbitrarily, charges you a certain rate of interest, and you can pay them back at your schedule.  If you pay all of the interest for that month, everything else goes to principal. If you don't pay all of the interest, that interest is added to the balance and gets interest compounded on top of it.  Both are perfectly viable business models, and bank employ them both, but they meed different needs for the bank.  Fixed-term loans help stabilize cash flow, and lines of credit provide convenience for customers." I have worked for BNP (BNP PARIBAS) a french bank.  From my experience it is the easiest sale to make when working for a bank. Because saving is sold as a long term investment your client is not likely to close the account any time soon. From this product on you could open a broker account if the client wants to take more risks ( yhea yet another sale). If the client is very keen on no risks, there are insurance products (they make plenty of money from insurance) or callable investments that you can propose. Retail banking works by attracting a maximum number of people and selling them a maximum amount of product.  To answer you question is it profitable? I am sure it is not ( right now your savings account costs the bank money because of super low rates in the EU). I think it is all about increasing or maintaining market-share that you see some banks offering some cash just for opening an account.  At the moment we have to sell credit cards to people that is where banks make good money. If you would like me to go more in depth on a specific subject i mentioned here just ask. Hope it helped. Yes, it's a good idea to have a separate business account for your business because it makes accounting and bookkeeping that much easier. You can open a business checking account and there will be various options for types of accounts and fees. You may or may not want an overdraft account, for example, or a separate business credit card just so you can more easily separate those expenses from your personal cards. When I started my business, I opened a business checking account and met with my banker every year just to show them how the business was doing and to keep the relationship going. Eventually, when I wanted to establish a business line of credit, it was easier to set up because I they were already familiar with my business, its revenue, and needs for a line of credit. You can set up a solo 401k with your bank, too, and they'll be very happy to do so, but I recommend shopping around for options. I've found that the dedicated investment firms (Schwab, Fidelity, etc.) tend to have better options, fees, and features for investment accounts. Just because a specific bank handles your checking account doesn't mean you need to use that bank for everything. Lastly, I use completely different banks for my personal life and for my business. Maybe I'm paranoid, but I just don't want all my finances in the same place for both privacy reasons and to avoid having all my eggs in the same basket. Just something to consider -- I don't really have a completely sane reason for using completely different banks, but it helps me sleep. I'm not a financial guy. That being said, I think you can make a couple of common sense points here: The reason this site exists is because in some of these countries there just isn't an established way to create credit history. Partly because the infrastructure is risky to build. It may also be due to the corruption within a country. The really cool part about Kiva and these other lending tools might be that they can be an end run around those governments and are a 21st century approach to building the infrastructure for credit worthiness.  That being said, you probably already realize, in this situation - you're the bank - and you really ought to be acting somewhat like a bank: I'm also curious whether or not the good loans and opportunities are snatched up so quickly that all you are left with is the really high risk stuff. Anyway that's my non-expert 0.02. Many good points have been brought up, and I'll just link to them here, for ease. Source: I work at a credit/debit card transaction processing company on the Database and Processing Software teams. See mhoran_psprep's answer. See Chris' answer. Believe it or not, banks don't expose their primary (or secondary) database to end users. They don't expose their fastest / most robust database to end users. By only storing x days of data in that customer-facing database and limiting the range of any one query, any query run against it is much less likely to cause system-wide slowness. They most definitely have database archives which are kept offline, and most definitely have an employee-facing database which allows employees to query larger ranges of data. What would a bank have to gain by allowing you to query a full year of transactions? Actually BofA never charged for their debit card usage. It was all heresy from the media because Wells Fargo and Chase Bank were actually charging their customers. As to your credit card, you know that you can close that at anytime and pay off whatever owing balance you have left with it still closed.