<prompt> Human: My SO 27M and I 25F have been together for a bit over 3 years, living together for 2, and have every intention of spending the next forever together. Were at a point where wed like to be more intentional about our finances to ensure we are spending and saving wisely for our future together. Aside from our general concerns about intertwining finances because what if we break up, right? thats a whole mess to sort out. we want to ensure were doing things in the smartest way. Weve both only ever been in charge of ourselves, and we currently split things 5050 for the most part. We make fairly similar incomes 2000USDmonth for him, and 2125USDmonth for me. Our monthly bills include: - Rent: 850month all utilities included - Internet: 50month- Netflix: 8.60month- Car Payment his: 170month- Car Payment hers: 147month - Groceries: 500month thats definitely higher than our actual spending, but wed rather budget for more and have leftover money! - Gas: 80month each 160month total In addition to bills, we have student loans. He has about 20k left in multiple loans from undergrad. My undergrad is paid off, but Im in a graduate program that will cost me about 1500 each semester for the next 2.5 years. At the moment, the only loan I have is for this semester, 1500, already accruing interest. Weve thought of several approaches but arent sure where to go next. Our first thought was to live like a singe-income family: I take on all the household bills and rent, and rather than stashing his entire paycheck into savings, we use it to pay down loans. We also need to factor in savings - Im currently putting about 500month into a general savings account out of my 2000 monthly income, and we want to continue this practice andor increase our savings as much as possible. TL;DR: How do you all split your incomes, PF? We want to combine finances and split bills in the best way possible. Any and all advice or anecdotes are appreciated!! EDIT: to everyone who replied: THANK YOU. when I posted this earlier, I didnt expect this much response. All of these replies have been so helpful. There seem to be some common trends and a lot of good advice. You all are awesome!  <response>: My husband and I each had established financial practices before we became a couple. When we got engaged we discussed how to combine our incomes so that we can equitably pay bills while maintaining personal spending allowances. This is our strategy: Account Description ------ Fixed expenses Mortgage, auto-loans, and student loans. Varied expenses Utilities, shared credit cards we have a Costco AMEX account we use for groceries and gas, cellphones, auto insurances, NetflixHuluetc. Personal accounts We each have our own personal credit union accounts. Were beneficiaries on the accounts, but otherwise theyre totally private. We used a shared Google Spreadsheet to list all expenses, estimating for some based on past months bills, and then set our direct deposits from work to feed into the multiple accounts. I get paid once a month so I put hypothetical figures here 1000 into fixed expenses, 500 in varied expenses, and anything left over goes into my personal account.Some decisions we made were thus: were going to share all existing non-credit card debts. My husband came with a mortgage, but I came with student loans. We both have auto payments. We each pay our credit cards from our personal accounts. If the shared accounts have extra money at the end of the months it stays there as a buffer for other months or emergency needs. If we go over budget on the shared AMEX credit card sometimes we travel more or spend more on groceries than is normal we each pay half of the overage.The personal accounts allow us to buy gifts or dinner for the other person, have some sense of privacy, and allows us keep a personal spending budget however we want. We take turns buying dinner or non-grocery things that will be shared and figure it evens out in the end.Our plan works very well for us, but the best part: we communicated and came up with it together. Thats the important thing. You two need to have a real planning discussion. Some heart-to-heart talks about how you both feel and your pasts with financial matters may be necessary precursors. 