[mcrute]

We don't have any form of combined finances, each of us deposits our money directly into our own private bank accounts and has our own credit cards. While we, in theory, have access to each other's accounts for the purpose of survivorship; in practice we would never use that access and would consider it a violation of our relationship agreement should a partner chose to use that access.

We split bills though. I take large expenses, like rent and insurance and they take smaller expenses like groceries and dining out. At the start of the year we do a budget of what we project expenses to be based on the prior year (usually takes an hour or so because we both keep good financial records). We then divide that down into a monthly payment such that we're each contributing 50% of our living expenses and they transfer money to me monthly since I'm paying the larger share of the bills. At the end of the year when we budget for the next year we reconcile any differences between budget and reality so that we do in-fact each pay 50% of the living expenses (sometimes this means I give them money, sometimes they give me money). For really large one-off expenses we nominate a partner to take on that expense and the other transfers their share of the money for that expense to the partner taking on the expense. Same story for vacations or trips except we settle that after the fact not before.

It's basically made money a non-issue in our relationship. Their money is theirs and my money is mine, what we chose to do with it is up to us so long as we're contributing our fair share of the living expenses.

Edit: since others are saying this, our relationship is very close and we consider ourselves to be a team but we very explicitly decided when forming our relationship to not have combined finances even though we cohabitate because we had observed that to be a deep point of contention in relationships around us.