Deciding to move in with your girlfriend is a huge step that can be both exciting and extremely scary. You are merging both your lives into one home, and weird habits and skeletons are guaranteed to come up eventually. Here are some 5 tips for moving in with your girlfriend that I’ve learned along the way.

Make sure you are moving in for the right reason.

For most couples, moving in together is naturally the next step after some time together. Living together is usually the precursor to walking down the aisle or starting a family. However, in this economy and day and age, there may be other reasons to want to shack up with your significant other. It is important to really understand what your reasons are for living together and to make sure that you are not making a decision based solely on finances or convenience. It’s really easy to think “Instead of paying $1,000 a month for rent, I could be spending $500 a month, which leaves me more money to spend on video games and beer”. While you will be saving money, this could backlash in the long run and may end up ruining your relationship.

You need to be sure that you are really ready to share every aspect of your life with this person. Remember, that you will wake up to and fall asleep with your girl every day now. If that puts a smile on your face and some butterflies in your stomach, you are ready. If that idea absolutely terrifies you, maybe you should re-think your decision to live together right now.

Make a real effort to make change “Your” place to “Our” place.

In an ideal world, you would go apartment or house hunting together and choose a place that fits both your needs perfectly. Moving into a brand new place can really give a clean, fresh start and will reinforce the idea that your home truly belongs to the both of you. However, this may not always be a practical option, especially if one of you still has plenty of time on your lease. If that’s the case, then make an effort to buy new furniture or appliances together. It’s also really important to make sure that the person who is moving in incorporates any personal items, like pictures or pieces of décor, even an ugly Barker Lounge chair. This will give you both the feeling of equal ownership and will help prevent anyone from feeling out of place in his or her new home.

Have an agreement on finances already in place

Moving into together also means that you will have to be sharing bills and managing money together. Because money tends to make people go funny, it is a good idea to define some terms before you start living together. Figure out if you want to set up a joint account to handle the bill payments or if one person will be in charge of making sure you meet payment deadlines. If one of you is better at budgeting, it may not be a bad idea to make that person in charge of paying the rent. Whatever the case may be, agreeing to something ahead of time will save you both from getting into useless arguments about money.

Don’t Forget About Date Night

When you live together, you obviously will see each other more than you had been before. You perform your day to day tasks side by side, eat meals together, go grocery shopping together, and get ready together. Because you are constantly with each other, it is easy to forget to set aside some quality time doing the things that you built your relationship on in the first place. It’s important to make a conscious effort to continue to work on your relationship and to keep the romance alive. Because you see each other every day, it becomes a little more special when you can get dressed up to take a night out on the town. Investing in quality time reminds you of all the great things you love about your significant other and will help to ensure that you don’t just become glorified roommates.

Don’t Forget About Yourself

When you are with someone else day in and day out, it is easy to lose your own identity or sense of self. Make sure that you don’t lose track of the other people that are important in your lives. It might help to develop a weekly routine where you go out with your buddies, while she meets up with her girls. Giving each other space will help take some pressure away from your relationship, and will help you to continue to love and respect each other as individual people.

 Sharing is Caring

Don't forget that now what's yours should be shared. It's ok to set boundaries...after all, there is nothing more annoying than finding out that your girlfriend used your razor to shave her legs, but try to be less possessive and share your things as much as possible. And because we are Beau Brummell after all, let us just recommend sharing our face wash and mask with your girlfriend. She will appreciate our fresh scent and activated charcoal, and you will appreciate her soft and kissable skin.  Look into some of our other premium grooming products. Hopefully, 5 tips for moving in with your girlfriend will serve you well in the future!