Ok, so far switching to Ally is going smoothly. Their online chat is very convenient for any questions I have as I'm going through the process as well. I rarely ever have to wait longer than a minute for someone to be available live online.

It does take awhile for funds to become available in my Ally accounts if I am transferring from an outside bank. That's not that big of a deal to me since I usually pay everything with my credit card anyway, but it's good to share. I'd say it takes about 4 business days for my Wells Fargo funds to be made available in my Ally account.

One hiccup I want to mention is the fact that apparently PayPal does not let you link online bank accounts. I had been trying to swap out my Wells Fargo checking account for my Ally account and it kept telling me "We cannot process your change at this time." I finally called PayPal and they mentioned they only allow brick-and-mortar accounts to be linked to your PayPal account. I opted to still remove my Wells Fargo account, but will keep my CitiBank Credit Card linked since I don't plan on getting rid of that anyway.

I recently decided to finally switch banks. I've been postponing this because I know what a time-suck it will be to transfer all my different retail/membership/direct deposit/etc accounts to the new checking account.

I recently opened an interest-yielding checking account through online bank Ally and a savings account through them as well. I've read many good things about them on NerdWallet, BankRate, etc. Any of you have an opinion on Ally?

What finally made me put on my big girl pants and do this was because my dad recently passed away and he had life insurance in which I am a beneficiary. I didn't want that death benefit check sitting in a checking account doing nothing.
I am also in the progress of selling my townhouse in Minnesota and will be getting check for the mortgage/purchase price difference and didn't want that sitting in an account that wouldn't do anything either.

I've never done any investing other than a 401K (and buying a couple Powerball tickets this week for the first time ever) so I figured a high-yield interest savings account was the first logical step.