Engagement ring shopping tips | WYTV

Len Rome’s Daily Feature of Little Known Facts

(WYTV) — Thinking of marriage in 2023?

Men, you’ll want to present your lovely engagement ring, but how much should you spend?

Times are tough, but you can follow that old rule of thumb that you spend three months’ salary on an engagement ring.

Really? Who came up with that one?

The wedding advice website called The Knot reminds us how all the diamond engagement ring businesses started.

In the 1930s — yes, during the depression — the De Beers diamond company came up with this marketing gimmick: engagements must always come with a diamond ring, and paying a month’s salary for it was fine.

Over the years, with inflation, that eventually grew to three months. That can be a sizable chunk of money.

For most people, the amount they pay is going to be a balance between what they want, what their loved one wants and what they can afford.

Before 2020, the typical engagement ring cost roughly $6,000 to $8,000. By 2020, that average dropped to $3756. The website Brides took a survey of 1400 newlyweds to find that figure.

Rather than deciding what to spend based on an old marketing campaign, work with a jeweler who can match your budget to what you’re looking for in your four C’s: clarity, cut, color and carat.

Diamonds are forever, but your debt shouldn’t be.

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