<prompt> Human: I know, I know. Its the standard advice. Yet...My CU offers a home equity line of credit as a free service, so I set it up. I have over 50 equity in my house. The rate is 6 on it.If I need fast cash in an emergency situation, its available to me. I will try to avoid this at all costs, but in an emergency situation, it is there. Heck, I could put bills on my credit card and then pay it off with cash pulled out of the home equity line of credit to stall the interest out even longer. Why, in this case, shouldnt I put my excess cash in bonds, a bond fund, or dividend stock that is unlikely to fluctuate like crazy but might earn better returns than a half-a-percent bank account?Assistant: What if they cancel your heloc?Human: Why would they? Its based on my equity which is not going to go down.Theres always the credit cards as a last resort, though I despise the idea.  <response>: Do you forget about the banks cancelling or greatly reducing the amount of HELOCs about 3-4 years ago when the crisis hit?Remember, the HELOC is at the whim of the lending institution. You are now basing your emergency fund on the ability of someone else to pay. For all those people who may have been relying on HELOCs back when the financial crisis hit, they had a rude awakening. It was a perfect or horrible path of events that crossed.Home values dropped, banks hit a financial crisis and stopped lending and close HELOCs.Unemployment skyrocketedBanks lowered the Credit Card limits of tons of peopleNow imagine you were one of those laid off, whos house lsot value and whos banks decided to drop their HELOC and lower their credit card limit? Wheres your emergency fund? Just at the moment you need it, what you had planned is gone or greatly limited.One of the things an emergency fund does is provide you the means to live through an emergency. the minute you begin to utilize a bank to get through an emergency you remove YOUR ability to do anything. You are riding on the whims of someone else to get you through an emergency.Personally, my emergency fund is for my peace of mind. I dont trust anyone else to provide for me when an emergency arises. I want to be able to rely on number 1...thats me. 