Online banking makes it easier to get more value out of your money without having to think about it

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• High-yield savings accounts can be a boon for your finances, but it can be hard to know how much to keep in savings.
• Filmmaker Hilary Hess uses her bank's overdraft transfer service to make it easy to handle.
• She makes most purchases on her credit card, and her bank automatically handles the rest.

Opening a high-yield savings account can be a boon for your finances. It lets you keep your funds easily accessible without significantly sacrificing their potential to grow.

One challenge to this strategy is knowing how much liquid funds to keep in your savings account versus holding in your checking account for everyday spending. Filmmaker and photographer Hilary Hess has found a simple solution to this challenge through her accounts with Ally Bank.

Hess calls overdraft fees a 'cruel policy'

Hess made the switch to the online bank about five years ago, annoyed with the mobile banking constraints and the overdraft fees of her old bank.

"It's kind of a cruel policy," she says of banks charging exorbitant fees for even small-dollar overdrafts.

Now in her 40s and no longer living paycheck to paycheck, Hess still isn't immune to overdraft fees. She wants to keep her money where it can earn the most interest — and that's not in a spending account. But she could risk an overdraft if she keeps too much in a savings account and forgets to fund her spending account before bills are auto-paid.

Ally's overdraft transfer service solves that problem.

Hess deposits all of her income directly into her Ally high-yield savings account,  but it comes with a limit of 10 withdrawals a month, far too low for everyday spending. So she puts day-to-day spending on her credit card and automatically pays that bill, along with other monthly bills, from her Ally spending account. If there's not enough money in the spending account to cover a transaction, Ally's overdraft protection automatically transfers money from her connected savings account to cover it, with no overdraft fee.

So Hess gets the benefit of both worlds: a strong interest rate on her liquid funds and automated payments from her spending account.

The value of not having to think about finances

Hess says the best part is having less mental accounting every month. "I've kind of given up keeping track of the checking account … It's nice to have one less thing to think about."

She's grateful for how "spoiled" we are with online banking and the ability to automate so much about our finances.

"Most people are busy and not thinking about your finances all the time," she says. "I'm not a super organized person in that regard, and it's just really nice [to know], while I forget about that [money], it's earning interest at least."

Hess acknowledges it might be possible to draw money directly from her savings account for some payments, but not for all of them. Ally offers online bill pay from a spending account, but not a savings account. So Hess uses the option to pay bills from her spending account while holding the bulk of her money in her savings account to earn the maximum interest.

A transfer through the overdraft transfer service does count against the 10-per-month withdrawal limit, something to note if you make payments on more than 10 bills each month. That's not the case for Hess because she puts most spending on her credit card and lumps it into one payment per month. She relies on her spending account for Zelle payments and some monthly bills she can't put on her credit card.

6 steps Hess took to avoid overdrafts

If you want to mimic this strategy and earn 4.20% APY on your spending money, here's how Hess does it:

1. Open an Ally Bank Spending Account and an Ally Bank Savings Account.
2. Link your savings to your spending account to set up overdraft transfer service.
3. Direct deposit paychecks and other income into your savings account.
4. Put bills and day-to-day spending on a credit card.
5. Set up auto-pay through your credit card account or Ally's online bill-pay service.
6. Ally will transfer money to cover any spending account overdrafts, rounded to the nearest $100, with no overdraft fee.

And don't worry: You won't ever be charged an overdraft fee, even if there's not enough money in either account to cover a transaction. In that case, the transaction would be denied, or you could use Ally's alternative overdraft protection, CoverDraft, to float you up to $250 until your next deposit.

Hess knows she benefits from a stable income that makes her less worried about overdraft fees these days. But she's also happy to use a bank whose "user-friendly" features make it even easier to stop worrying about money all the time.

"It's funny," she says, "to actually like your bank, you know?"