Spending Accounts FAQs
FAQs
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Of course! You’ll earn interest on all the money in your Savings or Spending Account, whether you use buckets or not.
Savings Buckets
We'll add all your interest paid to your core savings, unless you choose to have it added to a bucket. Go to your Savings Account and select Organize, then select Settings and choose Interest Paid to change the bucket.
Spending Buckets
Your interest paid will first hit your unbucketed balance and then get distributed to your buckets if you set up automatic distribution.
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No.
Keep in mind, while you can make unlimited bucket-to-bucket transactions, you’re still limited to 10 per statement cycle for certain types of withdrawals or transfers from your Savings Account.
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FDIC insurance doesn’t apply to individual spending or savings buckets, however, your deposits are insured up to the maximum allowed by law. Beneficiaries can’t be added to individual buckets–they’re listed at the account level.
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Your account balance at the end of the day determines the rate we use to calculate your interest earned for that day. The interest you earn each day is then totaled and paid to you at the end of your monthly statement period. To see how your checking account balance influences how much interest you earn, go to Spending Account Rates , enter your average balance, then select Calculate.
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All you need is your name, contact information, and social security number. If you're opening a joint account, you need that information for each account owner.
If you already have an account with us, we'll ask for your online username and password, so we can securely identify you and pre-fill most of the application for you.
Call us at 1-877-247-2559 to open your account by phone.
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Yes, completely! Whether you’re tracking your spending with spending buckets or using savings buckets to set aside money for long-term goals, we’ll never charge you a fee for these tools.
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Yes, online bill pay is included with our Spending Account — no additional enrollment is required. Once your new account is opened, you can take advantage of this secure, easy and environmentally friendly way to pay bills.
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You can select the Activity tab within your account to see your recent activity all in one easy-to-find place. If you want your recent activity to show first every time you log in, follow these steps:
Online:
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Select Customize from your account page
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Choose Activity, then Save
Mobile app:
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Select More from your account page
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Choose Customize Account View
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Select Activity, then Done
Any changes you make will be reflected when you log in online or in the app.
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Both accounts give you easy access to your money and a competitive interest rate on your balance.
We limit certain types of withdrawals and transfers money market accounts to 10 per statement cycle. These limited transactions include things like Online and Mobile Banking transfers (between Ally Bank accounts or to a third party), Overdraft Transfer Service, checks, and point-of-sale transactions (such as debit card purchases).
While you will receive checks and a debit card for a Money Market Account, you won’t have access to the free online bill pay service that comes with a Spending Account. Remember, deposits are always unlimited and don’t count towards your transaction limit.
There’s no limit on the number of transactions you can make.
You’ll also get the convenience of our online bill pay service for free. And as your Spending Account balance grows, you could earn a higher interest rate.
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You can access your account, make payments and move money any time at ally.com or on our app. You can also:
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Use a debit card or checks for purchases and payments
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Make payments using free online Bill Pay
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Get cash back when you shop with your debit card
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Get cash from an ATM
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Transfer money between your Ally accounts
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Transfer money from your Ally accounts to your accounts at other institutions
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Submit a wire transfer request online
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Give us a call at 1-877-247-2559 to request an official/cashier’s check, at no charge.
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Spending Buckets FAQs
General
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You don’t need multiple bank accounts and spreadsheets to manage your spending—we created spending buckets to help you reserve money within your Spending Account for anything you have coming up. The best part: you can add businesses to your buckets, and we’ll automatically take money out as you spend, helping you stay organized.
Plus, they’re totally free to use.
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They’re both the same and different at the same time! We’ll explain:
Spending buckets come with your Spending Account. They help you manage your spending. Things like bills, groceries, gas, and other recurring expenses are great examples of spending buckets you can add.
Savings buckets come with your Savings Account. They help you save for your future goals. Emergencies, your wedding, gifts – these all make great savings buckets.
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“Unbucketed” refers to the money that’s not tied to your buckets. If you’ve added buckets to cover all your recurring expenses, this amount represents what you truly have available in your Spending Account to save or spend on other things.
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No, you’ll still take care of that.
If you want, you can always set up Bill Pay with us. Just head to ally.com on a computer. Then select Payments and choose Bill Pay to get started.
Creating buckets
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You hit the max at 30 spending buckets.
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It’s easy. You can have us do it automatically or you can add money whenever you want using the Distribute Money tool.
To set up automatic distributions, head to your Spending Account and select Spending Buckets. Select a bucket, then choose Edit, then select We’ll do it for you under Distribution method. You can also select this option when creating a new bucket.
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Each morning, we’ll check to see if you have any unbucketed money in your account. If you do, we’ll:
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Look for buckets that have automatic distributions set up
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Find buckets that haven’t reached their target spend amount yet within a spending cycle
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Move money to the bucket you’re planning to spend from first
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Continue moving money to your buckets by date needed until they reach their target amount or your unbucketed balance hits zero
Allow a day for us to distribute any new money that comes into your account to your buckets.
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It depends, but ideally straight from the bucket that’s tied to the business you spent money at.
If you don’t keep some money unbucketed, things can get a bit…messy. Whenever you make a transfer or spend money at a business you haven’t tied to a bucket, we’ll pull money out of your unbucketed balance. If you don’t have any money unbucketed, we’ll have to dip into your buckets, starting with the bucket you’re planning on spending from last. That’s why it’s a good idea to always leave some money unbucketed.
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As many as you want! The limit does not exist.
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No, but you can move individual transactions from one bucket into another bucket.
Let’s say you normally buy groceries from a certain store, but a recent purchase there fits better with your home improvement bucket.
You can go into your groceries bucket and move that transaction over to your home improvement bucket.
Then, voilà, all of your bucket balances will be correct.
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Don’t worry. We’ve got you covered.
Next time you spend money at that place, just move the transaction from your unbucketed spending to whichever spending bucket you want.
If you want to always track spending at that business to your bucket, just check the box to make it happen. Poof, one move and it’s done.
Keep in mind that some unbucketed transactions won’t have this option. That’s okay, you can always move individual transactions into your bucket.
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Tracking businesses unlocks the full power of spending buckets, and is the best way to keep your spending organized.
We can’t automatically track your spending if you don’t add a business.
The good news is that it’s easy to add a business to your bucket whenever you want.
You can do this by editing your bucket or by moving transactions from your unbucketed spending to your buckets.
Managing buckets
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Head to your Spending Account, choose Spending Buckets, select the bucket you want to edit, then choose Edit.
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It’s easy. Just follow these simple steps.
Online:
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Log in and head to your Interest Checking Account
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Choose Spending Buckets and select your bucket
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Select Delete bucket
Mobile app:
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Log in and head to your Interest Checking Account
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Choose Spending Buckets and select your bucket
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Choose Edit, then select Delete bucket
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Things don’t always go according to plan. That’s okay. As long as you have money in your Spending Account, your transaction will still go through.
Here’s what happens: we’ll distribute money from your unbucketed balance to the bucket you overspent. If your unbucketed balance hits $0, we’ll move money from your other buckets, starting with the bucket you’re going to spend from last.
We’ll alert you if you overspend your bucket balance and show you which buckets we distributed money from in your bucket activity. You can always go to Distribute Money to adjust your bucket balances however you’d like.
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You can always turn off automatic distributions if you want to take a more hands-on approach to your spending.
Here’s how:
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Log in and select your Interest Checking Account
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Select the bucket you want to edit within the spending buckets tab
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Choose Edit, and then select You do it yourself under Distribution Method
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Head to your Spending Account, then select Spending Buckets. Choose the bucket you want to edit and select Edit.
From there, you can easily change how much you want to spend.
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Each morning, if you have automatic distributions set up, we check to see if you have unbucketed money in your account to move to your buckets.
Here are some reasons why you might not see an automatic distribution:
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You didn’t have any unbucketed money available to move to your buckets
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You didn’t have enough unbucketed money to fill all your buckets
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We already distributed the amount you needed to your bucket during that spending cycle (including any left-over money from a previous cycle)
To help you stick to your plan, we won’t replenish your bucket every time you spend (or distribute money) from it.
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Buckets and boosters are tools to help you grow your money faster. Buckets are available in both our Spending and Savings Accounts. Boosters are only available in our Savings Account right now.
Savings Buckets and Boosters
Savings buckets let you divvy up your savings into categories so you can organize and visualize your savings goals. You can create up to 30 savings buckets for things like emergencies, home improvements and vacations.
Savings boosters help you save a little here and there, consistently, making it faster and easier to grow your savings. We currently offer three types of boosters:
Learn more about these savings tools-
Recurring transfers: We move money into your savings according to the dollar amount and schedule you set.
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Round ups: We’ll track your Ally Bank Spending Account for transactions we can round up to the nearest dollar, then transfer the money to your savings.
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Surprise Savings: We analyze your linked checking account for safe-to-save money and automatically transfer it to your savings.
After your account is open, you can set up savings buckets or boosters by logging in and selecting Organize using buckets and Optimize with boosters.
Spending Buckets
You don’t need multiple bank accounts and spreadsheets to manage your spending.
We created spending buckets to help you reserve money within your Interest Checking Account for anything you have coming up.
Once you start spending the money you’ve set aside, we’ll automatically take it out of your bucket to help you stay organized. Best of all, it’s totally free.
To set up spending buckets, select your checking account after logging in and choose the Spending Buckets tab.
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See how savings buckets work
Buckets are tools within the Ally Bank Savings and Spending Accounts that help you organize the money in your account into different categories.
Savings buckets
Available with our Savings Account, you can create up to 30 buckets for savings goals like vacations and emergencies.
See how spending buckets workSpending buckets
Spending buckets, available with our Spending Account, are a great way to set money aside for ongoing expenses. You can track your spending across different categories by adding businesses or moving individual transactions to your buckets.
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Yes, you can. To set up recurring transfers, select Optimize with boosters, and then select Start Saving in the recurring transfers booster tile. From there, you can select the amount, set the frequency, and choose how you want it distributed to your buckets. You can also edit any recurring transfers you’ve already set up.
Any existing recurring transfers you have set up to go into your Savings Account will continue and show as a booster. By default, your existing recurring transfers will go into your core savings bucket.
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Of course!
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Nope.