A couple of weeks ago, I shared my top ten financial fears about moving in with my partner. However, it’s not all doom and gloom. Potentially moving in together is an exciting thing, of course. In addition to the partnership joys it offers, there might be some good financial things as well. Here are some of the positive things I think about, financially, when I think about moving in with my partner:
1. Opportunity for Growth
I told you about many different financial fears in that other post. However, almost all of them offer this great potential for both individual and shared growth. Sure, I’m afraid that we’ll argue about money or get judgmental or need a couples’ therapist to help us figure out how to talk about money.
However, I also really believe in the strong foundation we’ve established as a couple. We work hard to communicate about everything authentically but with kindness. I honestly believe that we’re both going to continue to do this work. In doing so, we’ll have the chance to strengthen our relationship even as we face new challenges around money.
I’ll also have the opportunity to keep doing my own internal work. Money brings up all kinds of “stuff” for me psychologically. Working through it helps me in my life. If I never move in with a partner, I’ll avoid dealing with certain financial things forever. However, I’ll also avoid growing in those areas. I choose growth.
2. We Can Learn From Each Other
As I mentioned before, he and I are different about money. We’re not so fundamentally different, though, that the differences are insurmountable. In fact, we agree on some pretty important things. For example, we both always pay our bills on time. We both agree to pay more than the suggested “one third of income” on rent because we both absolutely love living in San Francisco. Moreover, we both agree that while financial stability is very important to us, we also don’t want it to be at the expense of chasing dreams.
So, we do have a good foundation. And therefore, I think the differences might be a good thing. I think that over time, we could learn a lot from each other about money. Carrying debt isn’t always a bad thing, so he could learn more about that from me. He’s better at budgeting than I am. There are lots of little ways we could teach each other to be more flexible in the areas where each is a little rigid.
3. More House for Less Money
As I mentioned before, I’m worried about how much house we can afford in San Francisco. However, there’s the potential for this to go better than my fears would lead me to believe. Right now, he lives in a studio and I live in a one bedroom apartment. We each pay close to $2000 per month for rent. So, if we found a place that was $3900 per month or less, then we’d each pay less than what we do now. And yet, we’d get more house. We’re looking at 2 and 3 bedrooms, hoping for the latter. We would love to each have a separate room for our office/craft/music/whatever stuff. A bedroom plus an extra office is more than either of us has now. So, we’ll see how this one shakes out.
4. Other Financial Benefits of Living Together
We could potentially reduce other costs by living together as well, of course. Right now, we each separately pay for utilities, renter’s insurance, Internet, etc. Moving in together, none of those costs should go up very much, and yet we’d be splitting them in half.
One of my biggest expenses is the cost I pay for my dog’s care during the week. If we moved into a situation where he and/or I could walk the dog more, we might be able to use that service less. I’d never cut it out completely because it’s so good for my pup to go with his pack. However, we could perhaps reduce the cost.
We might also spend less on food. We both tend to eat out frequently, both separately and together. However, we both love the idea of cooking at home more if we had a person there to share that experience with. So, only time will tell if there’s savings in this area, but there’s potential for it at least.
5. Shared Financial Decisions
On one hand, I’m intimidated by sharing financial decisions with someone else. After all, I’ve never done that before. Learning how to do that will certainly have its ups and downs. However, it could have some really positive aspects, right? I’ve been solely responsible for all financial decisions in my life since I was 18. There’s wonderful independence to that but it’s also a big burden to bear. It might feel good to have someone else shoulder some of that responsibility. When I’m not sure what the best financial course of action is, it might be helpful to have two points of view to sort it out together.
Financial Pros and Cons of the Moving Process
So far, I’ve only discussed what might happen after we move in together. However, we also have to factor in the actual process of moving. There are going to be financial pros and cons to that part of this whole thing. For example:
- We are both going to have to hire movers to move us out of our current places and into the new spot. That’s going to be expensive. We’ll both cover our own costs for that.
- I don’t have a deposit at my place because that’s not how my landlord set things up when I moved in. However, he should get a full deposit back when he moves. So, we’ll have that money to work with for moving in together. Hopefully we can use that to pay down some of the deposit on the new place.
- I love decluttering my stuff and look forward to getting rid of a lot of things that are well past their time. However, we’re also going to have to invest in some new things. The most expensive new purchase is that we need a larger bed. So, we’re going to have some furniture costs. Hopefully we can each sell a few things to offset those costs.
I wouldn’t say I’m feeling either positive or negative about this aspect. Financially, I expect it to cost a little more than it saves. However, we should be able to reduce costs in a number of ways. Therefore, it shouldn’t pose too much of a problem to our planning process.
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Kathryn Vercillo is a professional writer who loves to live a balanced life. She appreciates a good work-life balance. She enjoys balance in her relationships and has worked hard to learn how to balance her finances to allow for a balanced life overall. Although she’s only blonde some of the time, she’s always striving for total balance. She’s excited to share what she’s learned with you and to discover more together along the way.