Joint Accounts for AOS?

[Sgt. McGee 27]

My wife and I each have a savings and a checking account that were started separately, and then we also have a savings account (at a different institution) that we opened together.

Yesterday, we added each other to the our respective checking accounts (lots of transactional activity out of those, as you might expect), but not to our individual savings account(s). The joint savings account has virtually no activity, as we opened it with wedding gift money that we plan to use for big purchases (furniture for the house, our honeymoon once her AOS is complete, etc).

I've seen a lot of references to the fact that a lack of shared/comingled financial resources can be an issue for AOS, but we had planned to keep our finances (in the "bank account" sense) largely independent. I do pay her health insurance (medical, dental, vision) and car insurance (we have a shared policy) as well as a few other things, and submitted those with our paperwork. I bought the house before we were even engaged, so the mortgage is in my name alone, as are the utility bills.

Should we take the extra step of adding each other to the savings accounts, or will that be OK? The savings accounts see very little activity, other than routine deposits. I can't remember the last time I took anything out of savings (which, in this case, is a good thing!). I just want to be sure we won't be in for a rough ride when we FINALLY get to our interview...

Thoughts?

[VanessaTony 3,567]

My wife and I each have a savings and a checking account that were started separately, and then we also have a savings account (at a different institution) that we opened together.

Yesterday, we added each other to the our respective checking accounts (lots of transactional activity out of those, as you might expect), but not to our individual savings account(s). The joint savings account has virtually no activity, as we opened it with wedding gift money that we plan to use for big purchases (furniture for the house, our honeymoon once her AOS is complete, etc).

I've seen a lot of references to the fact that a lack of shared/comingled financial resources can be an issue for AOS, but we had planned to keep our finances (in the "bank account" sense) largely independent. I do pay her health insurance (medical, dental, vision) and car insurance (we have a shared policy) as well as a few other things, and submitted those with our paperwork. I bought the house before we were even engaged, so the mortgage is in my name alone, as are the utility bills.

Should we take the extra step of adding each other to the savings accounts, or will that be OK? The savings accounts see very little activity, other than routine deposits. I can't remember the last time I took anything out of savings (which, in this case, is a good thing!). I just want to be sure we won't be in for a rough ride when we FINALLY get to our interview...

You don't need to have EVERY account together. I'm sure USCIS understands the needs to have separate savings account and even separate normal accounts (like for buying each other pressies and not using joint funds).

What you've done seems more than fine to me. They just want to see that you have trust in each other by sharing money or access to money and it looks like you've done that easily.

[Sgt. McGee 27]

You don't need to have EVERY account together. I'm sure USCIS understands the needs to have separate savings account and even separate normal accounts (like for buying each other pressies and not using joint funds).

What you've done seems more than fine to me. They just want to see that you have trust in each other by sharing money or access to money and it looks like you've done that easily.

Thanks! I was hoping reason would prevail, but so much of this process seems like tweaking our natural relationship patterns to make sure it looks like someone else thinks it should, and seeing advice on the site had me worried that we wouldn't be "checklist-compliant" enough!