The moving-in-together checklist (beyond the boxes)

Most of a moving-in-together checklist is logistics you already half-know: change your address, sort the internet, decide whose sofa survives. Worth doing — but they're not what makes living together feel good or bad six months in. The things that do are the two conversations almost no checklist mentions: how you'll split the money, and how you'll share the time. This list covers both — the boxes and the bits people skip — so you move in already agreed on the things that otherwise turn into friction.

Work through it in three passes: before the move, the week you move, and the first month settling in.

Before you move in

The admin, done early so moving week isn't buried in it:

• Sort the essentials at the new place — internet, electricity, gas, water, contents insurance. Note which are in whose name.
• Decide what you're keeping. Two of everything means one of most things has to go — agree before the boxes arrive, not in the doorway.
• Update your address where it matters: bank, employer, doctor, deliveries, official post.
• Declutter before you pack, not after. Two households merging means two of most things, and moving something you will bin in a month costs you twice. Decide what survives while it is still in the old place — it is a far easier conversation with the item in front of you than in a doorway on moving day.
• Sort the pet questions early if one of you has one. Whether the new place allows pets at all, whether there is a pet deposit, who is responsible for walks and vet trips, and what happens on holidays. A pet is a standing daily commitment that one person usually arrived with and both people end up carrying.
• Have the money conversation. This is the one that matters most and gets skipped. Agree how you'll split shared costs — evenly, by income, or by category — before the first joint bill lands. We walk through the three fair methods in how to split household expenses fairly; pick one now and moving in is calmer.
• Agree on a shared home for plans and money. Not a group chat and a mental note — one place you'll both actually keep the calendar and the expenses. Deciding the where now saves a hundred small "did you pay that?" moments later.

The conversation about what happens if it ends

If you get as far as wanting this in writing, what to put in a cohabitation agreement covers which parts genuinely need a document and which just need agreeing out loud.

Nobody wants this one, which is exactly why it belongs on a list that claims to cover the parts other lists skip. It takes twenty minutes and it is entirely unromantic, and the couples who have it are the ones who do not end up arguing about a sofa.

• Decide whose name goes on the tenancy. Both names means both of you have a right to stay and both of you are liable for the whole rent. One name means the other person has neither. Neither is wrong — but know which one you have chosen, rather than discovering it later.
• Write down who paid the deposit, and in what proportion. This is the single most commonly disputed sum when people move out, and a two-line note in a shared place settles it permanently.
• Note who owns the expensive things. The washing machine, the bed, the television. Not a legal document — just a shared note written while you both still remember, because "we bought that together" is a sentence two people can recall very differently.
• Consider a cohabitation agreement if you are buying anything together. Living together does not give unmarried partners the automatic rights marriage does, and that varies by country — so if one of you is contributing to a mortgage on a property in the other's name, get local advice rather than an internet answer. It is a cheap conversation now and an expensive one later.
• Agree how you would unwind the shared money. Which account closes, who takes over which bill. Five minutes now, no negotiation at the worst possible moment.

The week you move

• Do the handover properly — meter readings at both places, keys back, final bills for the old address.
• Set up your shared calendar first, before life gets busy. Give each person a colour and put the recurring anchors in — work shifts, the gym, standing family things. That's what you'll double-book against, so it's worth doing on day one. Here's how to share one calendar without double-booking.
• Enter the repeating bills once. Rent, utilities, subscriptions — set them up as recurring so they appear every month on their own and nobody has to remember them.
• Pick the small tracking habit. Agree that any shared cost gets logged the moment it happens, from whoever's phone. Ten seconds at the till beats a monthly reckoning.

The chores conversation nobody schedules

Every other moving-in list has a chore chart. This one deliberately does not, because a chart is a schedule for work you have not agreed the shape of yet — and the argument is almost never about who vacuums.

Three things are worth settling instead:

• Name the invisible jobs, not just the visible ones. Vacuuming is visible. Noticing the bags are running out, booking the boiler service, keeping track of when the car is due — that is the half that causes resentment, because it never looks like work. Write those down alongside the obvious ones and the list suddenly looks very different.
• Whoever owns a job owns noticing it too. This is the one genuinely load-bearing rule, and it comes from Eve Rodsky's Fair Play: owning a task means owning the noticing, the planning and the doing. "I'll help if you tell me" is delegation wearing the costume of sharing, and it leaves the list exactly where it was.
• Agree your standards out loud, once. Most chore arguments are two people with different thresholds for "clean enough" discovering it by friction. Say the thresholds. You do not have to match — you have to know.

We go further into this in how two working people run a household.

The first month

• Do a money check-in. After a few weeks of real spending, look at the month together — what went out, and who paid for it. Not to settle a score — just to confirm the method you picked actually feels fair now that it's real.
• Notice the invisible admin. Someone books the dentist, someone remembers the car service. Put those in the shared calendar and notes so they're visible work, not silent work one of you carries.
• Keep a shared list of the house stuff — the plumber's number, the wifi password, what day the bins go out. Boring, and exactly the stuff you'll both reach for.
• Say the quiet things about space. How much time alone each of you needs and when, how much notice a guest staying over needs, whether working from home means the other person is off-limits. These are not preferences worth defending to the death; they are just facts about you that the other person cannot guess and will otherwise learn by getting them wrong.
• Agree to revisit, not relitigate. Say you'll re-check the money split and the calendar rhythm in a few months. Knowing there's a scheduled moment to adjust stops small annoyances becoming standing arguments.

Where it all lives

A checklist gets you moved in; the two conversations keep it good. Both of those — the money split and the shared calendar — work best in one place you both open, rather than scattered across chats, a spreadsheet, and two separate phone calendars.

That's exactly what co-life is for: one shared home base with your calendar, your expenses, and your notes together, a colour for each person, and the repeating stuff set up once. If you're moving in together and want somewhere to keep the shared side of it, give co-life a try — it's free to start, EU-hosted, and built for two people sharing one home.