How do you merge finances with a significant other?

In my previous post, I discussed the different financial advice men and women get and finding someone financially compatible was a high priority of mine when dating. I got more questions about how we thought about combining finances, and I wanted to share some thoughts. Especially once we began to talk about moving in together and getting engaged, a specific set of questions came up: how do you merge finances with someone else? How do you talk about money and make sure you’re on the same page financially? Here were a few pieces of advice that helped us in our financial discussions:

Figure out your own approach to money first: Before we started having conversations about the minutiae of splitting finances (e.g., how would we split rent once we moved in together?), we both spent a bunch of time individually thinking through our approaches to money. Once we started talking, two things immediately became pretty clear: one, because we both grew up with parents who shared finances, we both felt very comfortable with this approach. We realized we’d actually already fallen into that pattern before moving in together (e.g., we both traded off expenses on vacations without a lot of thought as to whose account each expense came out of or whether we’d actually ended up even at the end). Two, we realized we were holistically aligned in how we saw assets and liabilities before and after marriage (totally separate before but split 50-50 after because we’d both be making tradeoffs in order to maximize value as a family).
Start talking about money early: Money actually came up pretty early on while Jason and I were dating. When we first met, I worked at a startup, while Jason worked in finance. After our first few dates, we started splitting the bill over dinner, and I immediately ran into a problem: we were ordering (and thus splitting the tab on) a bottle of wine each night, which I couldn’t afford. I usually never drank wine when out to dinner for this exact reason, and I knew I needed to bring this up to Jason. It felt weird to discuss something as loaded as money early on, but I was pleasantly surprised by the outcome: we agreed to drink more at home before going out, and Jason started picking up the tab for the entire bottle of wine on the evenings he really wanted us to have wine with dinner.
The little things matter: One of the biggest surprises I had about marriage and finances was how important everyday financial decisions matter. Jason and I were largely on the same page with smaller decisions from the beginning - splurging on nice hotel rooms but choosing cheap flights, prioritizing an apartment closer to work vs. a nicer apartment further away, yes to organic vegetables but no to non-sale clothing - which has made us both feel comfortable with how “our” money is generally being spent.
Financial decisions aren’t always 50-50: Jason runs his own business, which means there are lots of financial decisions he makes that I simply don’t have enough context on to contribute 50% of the decision-making. We talk about any decision that materially impacts our overall financial picture, but I feel pretty comfortable trusting him to make most financial decisions in this area without my input.
Remember that you don’t need to merge finances right away: Jason and I merged finances once we got engaged, but I have friends who didn’t feel comfortable doing so until they’d been married for a few years. And even though we have now merged finances completely, when we first moved in together, we decided to split rent and shared expenses by each contributing a certain percentage of our incomes (vs. splitting all bills exactly 50-50).
Acceptance is key: It’s always worth remembering that sometimes your spouse will spend “your” money in ways you don’t completely agree with. For example, Jason likes to buy brand-new hardcover books while I always end up using the public library. It seems crazy to me to spend so much money on a book you might not even like! But, he accepts my spending habits that are baffling to him: I don’t wear a lot of jewelry but a few years ago, I decided to buy myself a nice watch. Jason - who’s never worn anything other than a $15 Timex - couldn’t believe I would consider spending more money on something that had less functionality (“It doesn’t even have a stopwatch!”).