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He's a big fan of Mickey Mouse mugs -- he's got 500 of them. She's enamored of that orange loveseat she's had since her junior year of high school.

However, they're moving in together and just don't have the space. One of these treasured items has to go.

It's a situation familiar to most couples. The circumstances will vary, but whether you are a young couple moving into your first house -- accepting any furniture you can get your hands on -- or you're a little more established and trying to fit two households' worth of belongings into one, you face a common challenge of merging two lives.

Yes, Please, We'll Take It!

If you're just starting out on your own, family and friends might be happy to give you their old stuff. One man's junk can be another man's treasure, right?

When Mike Adago and his fiancee, Steph, were preparing to move into their first home together, their strategy was to accept everything offered to them. Neither of them had lived on their own before, so they didn't have a lot of stuff.

Adago collected items given to them for the new house in his parents' basement, which made it difficult to keep track of exactly what they had. He found it easier to sort through what they needed once they moved into their house.

When moving day came, Adago recruited friends and family to help out.

"Steph told the guys which rooms the furniture went in. They were instructed to bring all tools into the basement and all other boxes were to go into the den for Steph and me to sort out later," says Adago."It took us about 2-3 weeks to go through everything to determine what we would keep."

In the end, anything they didn't keep could go back into circulation among friends. Adago says the most significant part of combining households was combining finances.

"Instead of trying to figure out who paid for what, we pooled our money together so we could just write checks," says Adago. "There is no more my money, her money; it is our money."

This is an important consideration for any couple preparing to move in together. Along with a home comes utility bills, possible home-improvement costs, and a mortgage or rent to pay -- when combining households, you need to discuss and agree on how you will handle these payments ahead of time.

NEXT: How to combine two established homes >>