With Valentine’s Day and the scent of relationship milestones heavy in the air, it’s time to talk about one of the biggest milestones of all: moving in with a romantic partner.

If you’re considering moving in together, my assumption is that you’re already bringing all the love and excitement and ooey-gooey feelings to the situation — which means that it’s my job to bring the practicality, organization, and the cold hard sense. This wretched Virgo thrives on sucking the joy out of situations, replacing it with a structure that will serve you well, far beyond your relationship’s honeymoon phase. (Spoiler alert: in my experience, all that good stuff comes flowing back in once you’ve set up a solid foundation.) 

Here’s a list of some of the un-fun, straight-up, business-like details that have made living with a partner so much better for me.

Decide whether you’re clean-slating-it, or moving into one of your existing spaces

If one of you lives in a two-bedroom alone while the other lives in a lofty attic garret, this is probably a no-brainer. But in my experience, few situations are that simple.

I absolutely loved the studio I was living in when I met my boyfriend, and by the time we moved in together, I’d been living there for seven years. It was basically my longest relationship, outlasting all the boys I’d dated along the way, proving itself reliable in ways they hadn’t been.

Still, my initial thought was that I wanted to start somewhere new with my boyfriend; I wanted to live somewhere neither of us had a history with. Realistically, this was going to create more issues than it solved. For one, my boyfriend had just moved into his roomy one-bedroom a year before, at which point he’d paid a hefty broker’s fee. (This is a cute thing that used to be legal in New York City, and was the bane of our collective existences.)

“…(W)e each ended up saving $630 on rent by moving in together.”

The fact that it made more sense for me to move in with him was staring us in the face, so I asked him for a couple things to make that prospect more comfortable for me.

First, I wanted reassurance that I could bring my own decorating touch to the space, and secondly, I wanted my vote to count a bit more the next time we went apartment-hunting. 

Since I hadn’t had any input in the selection of this current apartment, and it wasn’t a space I was super excited about, it felt only fair that I could weigh in extra on the next one! Happily, my boyfriend agreed. Something we’ve embraced in our relationship is that a compromise doesn’t have to just fall on one person; if there’s something you’re giving up, think about what you’d like to ask in return. Keep it within reason, of course, and don’t try to punish each other when you don’t get your way. But always ask for what you want — the worst your partner can say is no.

Don’t be shy about talking moving costs

We — or rather, I — now had a move to organize. Which was a particularly intimidating prospect after so much time in the same space. I’d been accumulating items around me like a cheerful little magpie for almost a decade, so there was a lot to dig through, get rid of, and sell-off. 

I know my own space and I like things a certain way, so I was happy to take on the labor and organizational side of things. In exchange, my boyfriend offered to split the moving costs with me, which brought a whole range of new options within reach, like rental boxes from Gorilla Bins, and a team of local L.A. movers, which I’d never been able to spring for before.

Since he was getting to miss out on all the most annoying parts of moving, he reasoned, it only made sense that he could contribute to the process financially.

According to my moving spreadsheet (lol), we each paid $577.92, all told. This included the bins, the team, the tip and tolls for the truck, and a mattress and dresser we purchased for our shared space. It might sound high, but I was able to pay down my end by selling big-ticket furniture items that wouldn’t be making the move, and we each ended up saving $630 on rent by moving in together. The whole extravaganza more than paid for itself within just two months.

Get all math-y with how you split rent

Talking about money can be fraught for me, which I counter by talking about it pretty much all the time to build up my resistance. One area where I still struggle, though, is in asking others for money.

When we first moved in, my boyfriend was making about three times what I did. (Incredibly, data science pays slightly better than freelance writing and bartending.) But for my own reasons, I wasn’t comfortable asking him to pay two-thirds more rent than I was. If you are, that’s great! You should lean into that hard. But if you’re like me, I have a solution for you.

I suggested to my boyfriend that we come at the rent split from a different angle. Aside from the mushy romance stuff, a big part of wanting to move in together was a desire to save money, which is why we ultimately decided to base our rent split not off of what we were spending, but what we were saving. 

With a standard split on our $1,750 Queens one-bedroom, my boyfriend would be saving $875 on what he used to pay, while I’d be saving just $385 on my old $1,260 studio. It was a great amount to be able to bank every month, but I was jealous of my boyfriend’s much larger savings.

“…(W)e ultimately decided to base our rent split not off of what we were spending, but what we were saving.”

To make the split more equitable, we added $875 and $385 together to get our total savings, then divided by two to find the average. The answer was $630, which we subtracted from each of our prior rents. I’d be paying $630, and he’d be paying $1,120. Not quite a two-thirds split, but one I never would’ve felt comfortable asking for without the power of math. 

These days, the gap has closed between our incomes, so now we are able to do a true 50/50 split, but the above method served us well for over a year. I’d highly recommend it to anyone taking the leap to cohabitation.

Make your lovely, wonderful significant other sign a dry, unromantic cohabitation agreement

As a child of separation and a graduate into the recession, my fundamental understanding of the world is that most things fall apart (cute!). But I’ve learned to speak my expectations so that others have a chance to respond calmly, or run screaming into the sea. 

Coming into this glorified roommate situation after seven years of solitude, I figured I was probably bringing some pretty serious expectations to the table, so I asked my boyfriend if we could lay out a document spelling them out. Our agreement detailed the aforementioned rent split, what goes down if we break up, and what major responsibilities we’re each expecting from the other in the meantime. 

Some things we considered: 

• Who buys groceries? Can we eat each other’s food?
  • Answer: we both buy groceries, but he buys more because I cook more. Any food is up for grabs, but there should be communication for specialty items that one of us has been looking forward to.
• Does one of us like cleaning, or should we maybe spring for a monthly service?
  • Answer: one of us likes cleaning, and it’s me. I do it once a week, and if I need or want anything from my boyfriend, I let him know.
• If we break up, can I have this couch please?
  • Answer: yes, because I’m the one who designed it and got us a discount on it.
• Should we get a joint bank account for some of our expenses?
  • Answer: yes, at Simple and then Ally, but let’s keep the majority of our finances separate.
• Can we please get renters insurance?
  • Answer: yes, an Allstate policy costing $13/month that we’ve transitioned to a USAA policy at $24/month.
• Which streaming platforms do we want?
  • Answer: unfortunately, all of them. But we’ll cobble them together in a way that makes sure we’re each paying for our fair share.
• What are your ideal bedtimes and wake up times?
  • Answer: I’m an 11p.m.-7a.m. “bb”, but he’s a 1a.m.-10p.m. angel, so we tried it his way for a while and have now settled on an 11:30p.m.-8:00a.m.-ish situation.
• How much time do we each need alone?
  • Answer: we decided we each get a minimum of a couple hours a day separate, him to play video games or chat with his friends, and me to play my silly little iPhone games and watch my television stories.
• How much time do we like to have together?
  • Answer: a lot, but there’s such a thing as too much, so let’s keep an eye on that.
• Will Judge Judy be impressed with us if she ever reads this?
  • Answer: nothing impresses her, but also yes.

Not every item made the final list, but putting it together gave us each an opportunity to share our biggest needs, wants, and fears about combining our lives, and it ended up being an incredibly productive conversation — one that we revisit every August to make sure we’re both still comfortable and feeling good.

And that feels like a good thing to add here: we are still a couple, and living together quite happily — in a Los Angeles apartment that I got a big vote in picking out — paperwork, uncomfortable conversations and all. We not only like and love each other, but respect each other’s boundaries, which gives me true confidence in the longevity of this match!

Illustrations by Molly Magnell