moving in with your boyfriend/girlfriend

how did it change your relationship?

Original Post by amethystgirl:

Original Post by jef9up:

Figuring out financial agreements before moving in together is a biggie. Who pays for groceries? electricity bills? cable? So far we haven't had any issues over it since we're both fairly good with money.

I think this was huge.

Because we knew that we were headed towards marriage, we consider everything to be 'our' money, but still keep our accounts separate. We got one shared acct that we could move money into, and a joint card that we each pay half of. Utilities come from the shared acct. We both pay the same amount of rent that we paid when we lived apart, but the surplus goes towards our savings acct to buy a house.

 I love the idea of the money you are saving by living together going towards a house fund.

We considered getting a joint credit card for 'household' purchases so that everything was split 50/50 exactly but it never got done. Instead we currently alternate grocery purchase trips and I am in charge of some utilities and he is in charge of others. We both figure it is all a wash in the end - but I bet if we sat down and ironed out the details we'd be pretty close to 50/50 without even trying.

We did that before we lived together (and only saw each other on weekend) but there was always this tallying of "ok so you bought this, so I'll buy this" and even a subtle amount of "I spent more money than you so far this weekend, so you need to even it up - let's go get ice cream!"

Once we switched to a joint card, that all went away. Plus, we each have our own cards for things like any car expenses, gifts for each other, clothes, etc, which means I can decide I really need a new pair of shoes, and he doesn't get a say. So joint plus individual works well for us.