<prompt> Human: I will receive a 15,000 USD signing bonus on my first pay check, which I think would be 9,000 after tax.I currently have 10,000 CAD exactly in student line of credit debt. This debt has a 3.95 interest rate and Im not obligated to pay the principal until 24 months from now although Im planning on paying it back as soon as I can.I also have a 9,000 car loan with 0 interest, so Im assuming that paying this back monthly as I am is completely fine.The credit line is locked as of now, and I cannot draw funds from it anymore.Im tempted to throw the signing bonus at the debt to get rid of it, and keep some of it for expenses related to my new apartment.Im really scared that if the job doesnt work out or for whatever reason I have to leave within a year and I owe the whole bonus back that I would have no funds to pay it back with.I believe that I should be able to save 2,000 a month after all my expenses as well when I start the job. Which is about 13 of my take home pay, is this reasonable? So I guess I could use this to pay it back, which reduces the risk down to about 7 months.Whats the smartest thing to do?  <response>: The smartest thing to do here looks like this:Pay half the 10K debt that you with almost 4 interest rate and save the 4k you will have left, if you can save 2k per month you will need just the first 5 months to get back to 15K im case that you need to leave your job for any reason.By doing this you are keeping a short margin of time to collect the 15K in case of an emergency and you are also cutting in half what your debt is going to eat from you each month. Edit: Im not an accountant or someone very experienced in the personal finance field but this looks like the smartest option for me. Hopes someone else can give you a more in-depth answer. 