Does the price of an engagement ring reflect the value of love?
Every year, numerous men worry about a reasonable budget for an engagement ring. While most are familiar with the 2-month rule, which states that the engagement ring should cost at least two net monthly salaries, few know that this rule is as general as it is unusable. To check a variety of latest unique engagement rings, do not hesitate to click here.
The engagement ring price should really depend on various individual factors. To determine your budget, I present five rules that are guaranteed not to go wrong.
The ultimate goal
When buying an engagement ring, the overall goal should be: the best quality for the lowest price.To achieve this goal, the 2-month rule is unusable for at least two reasons: 1) Not everyone can do without two net monthly salaries (rent, electricity, food and other items must still be paid).
2) Not everyone can access savings. Some men even consider getting into debt for the engagement ring. I’ll explain why this is bad. But first a little psychology.
Why expensive is not always better
Let’s say you’re browsing a jewelry store’s gallery and looking for a matching engagement ring. One ring seems pretty good and just fits the budget. Then there is a second ring that looks pretty and is also much cheaper.
If we ultimately resort to the cheaper engagement ring, we develop dissonance. That means tension between two contradicting thoughts.One says: An expensive ring reflects the value of my love. A cheap ring means that our love is not worth much to me. Cheap ring and big love do not go together and cause an uncomfortable feeling.
Especially with engagement rings, this bad feeling does not come from anywhere but is the result of a huge marketing campaign of the 20th century.To understand this better, we have to go back a bit in history.
What hardly anyone knows
Hardly anyone knows where the rule comes from, but it is still firmly in our heads and seems inevitable as the amen in the church.Our mind does not question what one unconsciously believes to be true because it is taken for granted.The tradition of two-month salaries is much younger than most people think.Only in the last century was the rule spread in large parts of Europe and North America. And we owe it all to a few diamonds that nobody wanted to buy.
In the past (before World War II), it was not common to have a diamond ring as an engagement ring.At that time, only about 10% of the fiancées had a diamond ring as an engagement ring (compared to around 80% today, and the trend is rising).
The Big Problem
De Beers had a problem: people weren’t very interested in buying diamonds. Diamonds were the stones for the super-rich; they were very rare and extremely expensive.If you had some money, you would rather invest it in other things, such as a house or a car. But not in a diamond.
When large diamond mines were discovered in South Africa in the 1970s, Geologists suddenly owned a large amount of diamonds.But they knew that only a few buyers (the super-rich) were in prospect. With so many diamonds and so few buyers, the diamond market would very soon be completely saturated.
So what to do?Jewelers had a plan: they wanted to get more buyers from different income brackets into diamonds. And he has that too.
How did they do it?
Jewelers’ goal was that everyone who received a diamond should feel loved and extremely happy.They attempted “to create a situation in which anyone who was planning to marry felt compelled to receive a diamond engagement ring.” Any proposal without a diamond ring should appear incomplete.
Among other things, they wanted to achieve this with many advertising photos on which he showed stars with diamond rings. He gave men the image that a diamond reflected the masculinity of the man.
They made a direct connection between romance, love and a diamond ring – marketing had an impact.In just four years, the number of diamond rings sold as engagement rings in America has risen by 55% from the original 10%!
Let’s get to the two-month rule
At the end of the 1930s, Jewelers made the recommendation to spend an entire monthly salary on an engagement ring, around 40 years later, it was twice as much: two monthly salaries.Instead of declaring it crazy to demand such large sums, the recommendation was accepted! Of course, that was neither coincidence nor luck.
Rather, it was the harvest of a simple but powerful slogan that is still used today:
“A diamond lasts forever”.Based on this slogan, the following message was spread: Jewelers simply created a contrast between 2 months and life as a whole. And two months compared to countless years of life really look like a bargain, right?
Now we know that what many consider a tradition today was a successful marketing campaign of the 20th century.The two-month rule has passed into our subconscious and has a lasting effect:
I am only a good husband if I spend a lot of money on the engagement ring. If I spend little on the ring, our love must be bad.Cheap and good love simply creates a contradiction with us, thanks to ancient geologists and archeologists!
Save money
It is no secret that an engagement ring of the same quality online is much cheaper than the one around the corner.Sometimes up to 60%. Despite initial skepticism, more seekers are tending to this option. However, one should be careful to buy from known and trustworthy online shops.
Just to give one example: You can save a lot online, especially with diamonds. If you visit online shops that specialize in diamonds (e.g., Segal Jewelry), you can specifically select a diamond according to the 4Cs (special quality criteria for diamonds).
Feel comfortable with the budget
The budget should not result in long-term restrictions in your usual lifestyle. Above all, you shouldn’t feel uncomfortable. Ask yourself the question: Do I have to do without a lot in Budget X? If the answer is yes, then set your budget lower.
Don’t get into debt
The engagement ring is just the beginning After that there is usually the wedding, honeymoon and so on.