<prompt> Human: I am a Canadian citizen from BC and I will be moving to Seattle for work in less than two months for at least a year on a TN Visa. I have no intention on permanently moving to the states and therefore would like to maintain ties with Canada. I am a little bit lostreally lost and need advice on pretty much everything. I am single, 21-26yo, no dependents, base income will be 70k USD. 1. Any advice on filing taxes? This is by far the most confusing topic for me. 2. I will be driving back to Canada 3 or 4 times a month on weekends. I am planning to lease a car in Canada if money allows, will I need to register it in WA and pay import taxes? Will I need to get WA drivers license? How about car insurance? Ive read that once you get a WA license, theyll punch a hole in your out-of-state license, but I would prefer to keep my BC license. The car will be used mostly to go between Seattle and BC. 3. I prefer to rent an apartment in downtown Seattle so I can be within walking or biking distance of work. Seems like I will be spending 1200-1500 a month on rent for a 1 bedroom apartment living with roommates is not an option for me. While I wait for my TN visa to be approved, can I apply for SSN? If not, how would I go about looking for a place to rent? Do landlords require my SSN? I realize theyll want to run a credit check, but to my understanding my Canadian credit score will not matter and I will be starting from 0 in the states. Will it be enough to show my employment confirmation with company X with income of X amount to convince them I have the means to make the monthly payments? General advice about renting would be really helpful!4. To follow-up with the above, what should I do with banking and credit card? I am currently with TD Canada Trust and it seems like I can open up a US account with them and get a credit card, but Im not 100 sure. I would also like to transfer some USD funds to CAD account regularly while CAD is weak. 5. What should I do for mobile phone plans? I plan on getting my current phone unlocked so I can use it with a WA provider. 6. The company has given me 4 different medical insurance options. I need help choosing the best one for my situation: - Shared deductible - HRA - Health Savings Plan - HSA? - Standard Plan - In-Network Only PlanI can provide more details for each one if need be. 7. 401k: Is this applicable to me and how much should I be contributing. Not exactly sure how this works. 8. Ideally, I want to be saving USD 2k a month. Will this be possible? Should I save less or more? -Rent: expecting to spend USD 1200-1400 a month -Car least: expecting to spend CAD 300-500 a month may not get a car if budget doesnt allowI know I asked a lot of questions and hopefully I can get answers to at least some of them. If you have other general advice on movingSeattle living or things that I have missed and should be considering, please please please let me know. I will be posting the same thing on rpersonalfinancecanada to see if they have a different take on this. Thanks everyone!  <response>: Hi, my wife and I moved from Vancouver, BC into Washington state about 2 years ago. I got a job with a company down here on a TN visa, so our situations are quite similar.1. Filing taxes for you will be quite simple since you arent married. Once you have your TN visa, you can apply for an SSN at the local social security office. Once you have a SSN W2 which your employer will give you, you can either file online or bring your taxes to any local tax place your taxes are no different than other americans. My wife was on TD status, so we had to apply for an ITIN for her since she didnt have an SSN, which made our situation slightly more complex here, but you dont have to go through any of that.2. We do the same thing drive back to Canada periodically. Since you are living in Washington State for more than 3 months you will have to import your vehicle. Make sure that any vehicle you lease complies with US emissions standards there is a sticker under the hood for a lot of vehicles, otherwise you can contact the manufacturer and they can send you a certification. Not all vehicles comply we had to sell one of our two vehicles when we moved because it didnt comply. You will have to get a Washington state license, and yes, they will punch a whole in your Canadian one. Luckily, Washington State and BC have an agreement, so you wont have to retake a driving test or anything. You have a little bit of lenience period here, so get your SSN first, as they will ask for it when you apply for the license.3. No, you need to have an approved TN visa your work authorization documents, before you apply for an SSN. You will also need them before you start work, so that shouldnt be an issue. We didnt have any trouble finding a place to rent, since we agreed to a one year lease. We did have to pay the occasional security deposit for things like cableinternet.4. We were concerned about being able to start a bank account in the US, since we had heard it could be difficult. However, we had no problem and just went into the local Bank of America. We started our with a secured I think that is the right word credit card, where you pay the entire limit of the card upfront, and top it up each month. This was just a stop gap until we could establish US credit. Given the current exchange rate, and that you are only thinking of staying for 1 year, I think transferring the majority of your earnings back to Canada is a great idea. 5. I would DEFINITELY get your current phone unlocked and take it with you. We were lucky that my employer sponsored phone plans, but we looked around and because we had no credit history, most carriers would require us to pay 100 of the cost of our phones up front. Since we were looking for new phones for both of us at the time, this was like 800 or something.6. Im a huge fan of the HSA. However, if you are only staying in the states short term, it might not be worth it since it will be hard to transfer this money back to Canada. If you are relatively confident you are only going to be in the states for 1 year, I would go with the lowest cost option.7. Same as above, its going to be difficult to transfer this money back to Canada, if you are only staying for 1 year, I would avoid it.8. No comment, other people probably have better budget advice. 