You can use it for veterinary expenses. It can help you pay for maternity care or adoption fees. If you’re applying for citizenship, it can help you cover those fees. If you’re planning an elective medical procedure, from weight loss to Lasik, it can help with that too. A personal loan can help you pay for your wedding, get a root canal, or send your child to camp. It’s wide open.

A personal line of credit works a lot like a credit card. There’s a limit to how much credit you can use, it’s available to you on a rolling basis, and the interest rate can be subject to change.

A personal loan, on the other hand, is a fixed amount that you get all at once, with a locked-in interest rate on a fixed repayment term. So instead of borrowing a little here and paying a little back there, you borrow your lump sum all at once, use it for whatever you need, then pay it back in steady monthly increments that don’t change over time.