This is Part II of “Personal Household Merger – Communicate and Conquer!” There’s not a “one right way” to do this: it doesn’t matter who pays what; but there’s certainly a “wrong way” to do this: not communicating your financial decisions or hiding your spending. As Tim said, regardless of you wanting to combine your finances or not, sometimes it might be a good idea to have one person take the lead and pay closer attention to your household finances. The keyword is “lead”, not “control”, not “takeover”, but “lead”. Because what you don’t want is to go to the other extreme: one partner completely takes over the finances, and that person, unfortunately, passes away first, leaving the other partner unaware of their finances. On top of losing a loved one, they have to face the unbelievable stress of learning and sorting out their household finances. For our team, Dan and Carey choose to keep their finances independent, and Nathaniel and Ying choose to combine their household - they each shared what their tricks for teamwork are. Finance is often an emotional topic, but please communicate with your partner, see the big picture, don’t miss the small details, and enjoy your life together!
