BANKING
Former students have recommended The Harvard University Employee Credit Union (104 Mount Auburn Street) and Citizens Bank (30 Brattle Street, Cambridge) as being particularly helpful and easy to work with.
Harvard University Employee Credit Union:
● Only Harvard affiliates can open a bank account here.
● International students can register for a bank account here: https://huecu.org/INTL/. You can even register online without being in Cambridge.
● Once you sign up, you will get a Shares account where you have to maintain $5 at all times. This is the price of the share you’re buying at the Credit Union.
● Next, you can sign up for a checking account. Once you have a checking account, you no longer need to maintain a minimum balance in your Shares account.
● Debit cards are issued in person, so you will have to visit the bank to receive it.
● Everyone with an account, including international students, is automatically eligible to receive a credit card with a $2500 credit limit. All other banks take several months to issue credit cards, and sometimes they don’t come through.
● HUECU ATMs are available on campus. If you need to withdraw money from another bank’s ATM, depending on your checking account, you may be able to recover the extra charges.
The biggest Boston/Cambridge bank is Bank of America. It has many convenient ATMs in the area, but relatively high fees. You may open an account online only if you have a US social security number at Bank of America - Banking, Credit Cards, Loans, and Merrill Investing.
Three smaller banks in Cambridge are the Cambridge Trust Company, the Cambridge Savings Bank, and Eastern Bank. Their fee structure is more reasonable, but since you may end up using the convenient ATM machines of Bank of America, you will want to ask what fees are charged for that service.
Here are some budgeting tools:
● Smart About Money | Personal Quizzes
● GreenPath Financial Wellness
● The Motley Fool
● Mint: Budget Tracker & Planner | Free Online Money Management
