Originally Posted by YAZOO

You might want to make sure that you bring enough to live on for at least a month when you start. It will take at least 3 weeks for your first paycheck to come in, and it's not much at that. Also, you need to pay for your housing out of your own pocket (or put it on a credit card), turn in your receipt to the Travel Department, and then wait at least another week before the per diem gets posted into your account. The way it works is that your first per diem has to be for at least 15 days, so you're looking at about $1000-1200 in rent/lodging costs before the money starts coming in.
I thought that I had came down here with enough money, but was still stressing out about my funds for the first month.