<prompt> Human: We live together, write separate rent checks, and use our own credit cards which we always pay off monthly to pay for apartment expenses, groceries, etc. We keep track of expenses in Excel and try to even it out at the end of the month.I was thinking it might be better to set up a joint checking account that we each transfer a certain amount into each month. I pay a little more for rent than she does so I guess wed take that into account when deciding how much to set for our monthly transfers.The idea would then be that we could open new credit cards which we like to do anyway for signup bonuses and such that we set for auto-pay from that account and only use those credit cards for apartment-related expenses. Then we dont need to track all the individual amounts since were contributing fixed amounts to that joint checking account and only using the associated credit cards for apartment-related expenses.The downside I see to this is that we lose the ability to leverage credit cards for various spend categories e.g. Chase Ink 5x points for utilities, IHG Visa Signature for groceries, etc.Does anyone else have thoughts on ways to do this?  <response>: My boyfriend and I moved in together a month ago. We share a joint checking account, and we each have our own separate checkingsavings accounts. We deposit funds for bills and apartment expenses into our joint account, and its the only account we use to pay for shared expenses. Whatever personal expenses we have like gas, credit cards, etc., we pay for separately. It works for us. But I agree with the others... just be wary of opening an account together. Ive been with my SO for 7 years, so we trust each other enough to know we wont screw each other over if things go sour. 