One bit of naggy advice -- if you are buying a property with your boyfriend, take extra care to make sure what's yours is yours, and what's his is his

Thanks! My mother's a real estate agent, so she's seen enough of these go sour that I'm definitely on board with getting it all on paper if we aren't married yet. He is too. He's a law student and had to negotiate these things in his former life as a mortgage banker. It's all been discussed.

We've both agreed we want to be married before buying a place. I should have mentioned that. Silly me, I've been on TMF long enough to know I was going to get the warnings about buying a place with your BF! Sorry about the confusion.

Another note: Wisconsin is a marital property state, so if I want those IRAs to remain mine and only mine, I cannot add any money I make (marital property) after marriage. Once you comingle $1 of marital property, it all becomes marital property. (Unless it was an inheritance or a gift that I can prove was only for me, but you can't use those for IRAs anyway.) So I think that is another reason I'm so territorial about them. If I decide to use them/mingle them another day, that's fine. But I would like to make that decision then rather than now. Is that selfish, or smart? I can't decide...