Ally Bank - Joint Account

Yes, Ally has joint checking and savings accounts. If you go to open a new account, it should give you the option to select the type of account (Joint/Individual/Custodial/Trust). With a joint account, you would both be named on the account, and can log in separately to access them. You can have your own individual account(s) and still share the joint account(s).

I'm not sure about converting your original checking/savings account to a joint account later. If you think you'll need to do that, you might need to confirm with Ally support.

Yes. You can keep your funds separately in your checking and savings accounts. Your fiancé can have his own set of accounts. Both can have joint checking and saving accounts. Ally allows to have up to 4 joint account holders. You both can open multiple joint savings accounts to save the funds for future and planned expenses. All checking account holds will be issued a separate debit card.

That's the main reason I'm still with Ally with all the debit card fraud craziness going on. My wife and I each have individual checking accts for our personal spending money, and we have a joint acct for monthly expenses. That, along with over a dozen savings accounts (did that before buckets), gives me a lot of control and flexibility. Sucks that we need to keep our cards locked until we go to use them...

Hopefully you have a better experience than me trying to set this up!

https://www.reddit.com/r/AllyBank/comments/y6w6tj/ally_headaches/

Ally is unwilling to transfer customers to the department that sets it up, and the department will only contact you if they are missing information.

The department that sets it up denied our request the first time without notifying us, then closed the request as 'completed' without setting up the joint account the second time.

Protips...press 1 when they ask if you have had unusual activity on your account, your hold time will magically become <10 minutes. If it's not resolved within 5 business days, be firm about talking to a supervisor, as they seem more willing to follow up on issues, contact the department directly, and provide callbacks. Good luck!

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Open a local bank checking account for your wedding stuff.

You can link any other accts you want in order to fund it.

After the wedding, use it for joint household expenses, rent etc.

Or keep it for special joint things, like travel.

Either direction you go, you'll have a record of who is contributing how much, and to what goal, and when.

No reason to involve your private accts beyond allowing contributions into this special acct for specified purpose(s).

Word to the wise, never do joint accounts. I worked customer service for Ally through a 3rd party several years back as a supervisor and I cannot tell you how many "I want to talk to the supervisor" calls I had to take because of a disgruntled spouse draining a joint account and disappearing. Telling that spouse that there was absolutely nothing to be done about a drained account was the worst. Had one lady in tears because her husband had left her and the 2 kids and took everything.

I keep my checking and savings with Ally and only I have access to it, and then we have a joint account that we both have access to. Then when we are married, I add her to my original checking and savings accounts.

Honestly, I'd skip the last step. I'm in a happy, trusting marriage; we use our joint accounts for almost everything. But we still each have our own personal accounts that the other person doesn't have access to.

I think it's helpful for two reasons:

1. We use them for individual discretionary spending - I don't need to worry about how another part for my 3D printer fits into our joint budget. It makes it easy to save up on things to spoil yourself with.

2. In the worst case, neither of us can leave the other completely high and dry.

The general shape of our finances is:

• Premarital assets in separate personal accounts.
• Personal/joint checking/brokerage accounts (schwab)
• Personal/joint savings accounts (at ally)

Every month:

• All income goes into joint checking
• $X gets transferred from joint checking to each personal checking
• $Y gets transferred from joint checking to joint brokerage and auto-invested
• All joint expenses come from joint checking (by way of a credit card if possible, for points)
• Anything left over either gets moved to savings or investments, depending on upcoming spending or whatnot