I ' m with your boyfriend here I don ' t think combining finances is a good thing to do before marriage . My thought is , if you ' re cool with that huge of a commitment , why not just get married unless you ' re not into marriage and never want to ? It would be hard to disentangle yourself from that sort of financial situation , which is why people normally save it for marriage . I also feel him on paying in cash my husband and I have great credit scores but do the same thing . It ' s a securitynot wanting to accrue credit card debt thing . Once you ' re married , does your BF want to combine finances somehow ? I wouldn ' t be happy not doing that , but some people make it work . If he ' s expressed hesitation , here ' s a suggestion my husband and I have some joint household and savings accounts , but also have our own personal accounts so we don ' t have to do that thing some couples do where they have to ask each other about personal purchases . Like , if I have enough in my personal account and feel like spending $ 200 on clothes I don ' t need , I can do that without having to talk to my husband or worry about checking our joint accounts and making sure we can afford it . Maybe your BF would be into that , bc it would give both of you a little more freedom and also let him do more bookkeeping for finances , which it sounds like he likes ! . What I ' m concerned about here is the fact that y ' all live together but your BF considers some household items his and some yours . Practically speaking , what does that mean ? Are you not allowed to use his items without his permission ? If you guys needed new couches , would he insist you get them since the old ones were yours ? I ' m a firm believer that once you move in with someone , you need to share things and not divide the household into his stuff vs . yours . If that ' s just a quirk of how he speaks , fine , but I ' d be worried if he actually believes it and acts accordingly .