4 Reasons to Combine Your Finances With Your Significant Other

So you're tying the knot or have decided to move in together and make your relationship a permanent one. When you merge lives with someone you love, often it makes sense to merge most aspects of your separate worlds -- including your finances.

While combining finances can raise some challenges, there are plenty of reasons why it makes sense to put your money together when you're married or are in a committed lifelong relationship. Here are four of those reasons.

1. Managing money is simpler

When you keep your finances separate, you'll constantly be forced into tough conversations about how bills will be split and who will be responsible for what expenses. Every little thing can become an issue, from whether you'll pay for your spouse's steaks at the grocery store when you're a vegetarian to who will pay what portion of the mortgage.

If you have just one big bank account, you'll still need to talk together about money priorities -- but you won't have the complexities associated with constantly deciding whose pot of money to pull from for which expenses.

2. You can work towards joint goals

Married or committed couples do lots of things together, from buying a house to starting a family to retiring and hopefully living out your golden years enjoying life. You both need to contribute financially towards these goals and work towards achieving them together.

When you've combined your financial life, it's much easier to look at all of your financial objectives as things you're working towards together. When you combine forces and put your funds together to achieve big things, you're much more likely to achieve them due to the power of teamwork.

3. You can help keep each other accountable

Your spouse or partner's decisions about money will have an impact on your life, even if you don't combine your finances. After all, if your partner gets deep into debt or ruins their credit rating, this is going to affect the things you can do together.

When you've combined your money, you'll be able to more easily see if your partner is making responsible choices so you can have a conversation if things need to change. Since your money will all be together, you're each less likely to do things with your cash you know your spouse wouldn't like.

4. You won't have to deal with income disparities

In many cases, one person in a relationship makes more than the other. This can be especially true if someone steps away from their career to manage family responsibilities. You don't want one spouse or partner to be flush with cash while the other financially struggles, and it's much easier to avoid this scenario if all of the money is kept together and clearly belongs to you both.

Talk to your partner and decide what works

Whether you decide to combine finances or keep your money separate, it's important you and your partner are in agreement about how you'll handle your financial life. You should have an open and honest conversation about how you'll deal with money in your marriage or relationship and you should make sure to come to a consensus before you get in too deep.