Money Moral Dilemma: Should I buy a cheaper engagement ring?

hairypitz

I've been with the OH for a long time and we both have the same job, which pays pretty decently. Our relationship has always been 50-50 in everything and I'm a Moneysaver too.
However....
I'd want a diamond engagement ring to be a nice quality diamond on a precious metal. My ideal diamond would be 0.5 to 1 carat with a nice cut and good clarity and sparkle. I don't have a specific price in mind but what I like goes for around £3K+
Having made this list of demands I should also add I really am no gold-digger, I'm not in the least bit interested as to whether I ever get the diamond of my dreams or not. I'm happy as I am. But when I look at diamonds I'd like a really nice one because it would be the only one I wear and I'd happily get my OH a really fabulous watch as a reciprocal gift.
i wouldn't expect him to get me what he couldn't afford but the diamonds I like are not the cheap ones.

Littlepea18

I recently got engaged and told my boyfriend not to spend anymore than a certain amount because you don't have to spend crazy money to get a gorgeous ring. Result - I got the ring of my dreams (from a high street jewellers) and he didn't spend money that can go towards our wedding. I couldn't have been happier- I wouldn't have been able to tell if he'd spent that extra thousand pound.

In comparison, my friend specified to her boyfriend the amount he should spend, carat, clarity and which high end jewellery store he should buy it from. She received a very generic ring which although met her specifications did not look any more impressive than a ring costing £1-2,000 less.

Go with your instinct and buy the ring you think is nicer! She won't be wearing the ring with the receipt attached so no-one will ever know.

Pollycat

Dadad wrote: »

I was such a poor student at the time that we couldn't afford an engagement ring at all, so just went ahead and got married. And she had to buy the £20 wedding ring. We still laugh about it 48 years later !

fierystormcloud wrote: »

Well done for being married for so many years. However, I am struggling to fathom why someone would get married at ALL if they couldn't even afford a wedding ring? How on earth could you possibly afford the wedding if you couldn't afford to buy a wedding ring? Not to mention running a home/running a car etc etc?

Dadad's wife bought the ring.

Nothing to say the bloke has to buy the wedding ring.

I would say that £20 for the wedding ring back in 1967 was actually a fair amount of money.

And 'in those days' the actual cost of getting married was lower in real terms than the over-blown drama-queenesque 'dos' of today. :cool:

I can't quite remember how much it cost me & my ex to get married at the Register Office over 40 years ago but it wasn't a lot.

And also - 'back in those days' - not everybody had a car to run.

TheBush13

Tradition is a month's salary but that doesn't come into it anymore.


I found the ring I thought my now wife would like and bought it. She loved it, she didn't ask the cost because it didn't matter. In fact her only point to me a few days later was:

"I hope you got Quidco cashback"


I knew right then she was a keeper

Jordo

I proposed with a £5 ring from accessorize, then later on we chose a ring together (funnily enough she loved the £5 ring and kept staring at it).


Spend your money in this order > Honeymoon, wedding, engagement.


The honeymoon is the only thing you have alone together and it will be the best holiday of your life. Wedding is a great day but a stress and more for everyone else and the engagement itself is ceremonial.

gaving7095

Assuming it's a diamond ring, diamonds are total B.S. - not at all "rare" - with their "value" set by corporations such as the De Beers Group. Try selling the same ring back to the shop you got it from, unworn, a day after purchase & be prepared to be offered like 30 % of what you paid probably at best LOL.
So, it is VERY plausible to find a VERY nice ring going very cheaply second hand for example. Assuming that this is something like what has happened, I would buy it for her & not tell her the cost.

Personally I would draw the line at buying a zircon (which after all is essentially exactly the same as a diamond) then passing that off as a "proper diamond".

Lunar_Eclipse

Well, I think it's a little strange to approach an engagement ring from a financial point of view, but on the basis it's typically a once in a lifetime expensive purchase, I find it much more understandable than all the people who shop to a budget for their children's annual Christmas presents. And then these children creating Christmas Wish Lists with this known budget in mind!

DH & I bought my ring together, because if it's something you wear every day for years, it's "important" you like it, if such trivial things can actually be deemed important. It had nothing to do with cost and we looked at rings that varied hugely in price (due to style.) We bought the ring I liked the most and was practical to wear. It was at the cheaper end of the ones we looked at, but I guess we were looking at a healthy figure, twenty years ago. I can recall finding a real beauty at about 8-10k that I thought was too much to spend. I ruled out a solitaire for this very reason; reasonable quality and size costs a LOT!

JimmyTheWig

Medway_Gal wrote: »

My first engagement ring
...
30 years later and my new fianc!e proposed to me, offering to buy me
...
a piece of jewellery I intend wearing for the next 40+ years.

Optimistic life expectancy! (Or very early first engagement ring.)

Person_one

fierystormcloud wrote: »

Well done for being married for so many years. However, I am struggling to fathom why someone would get married at ALL if they couldn't even afford a wedding ring? How on earth could you possibly afford the wedding if you couldn't afford to buy a wedding ring? Not to mention running a home/running a car etc etc?

Just googled, its less than £100 to get married in the basic register office nearest me.

Not sure how you can opt out of the cost of running a home just by not being married, I'm certainly not but the bills keep coming every month!

JimmyTheWig

I guess the point is that, unlike just about every other purchase, value doesn't really come into it.

Get the nicest ring within your budget. If there's one that's still quite nice, though not as nice, and better value because it's a lot cheaper - don't get that one.

Say, for example, it costs you £100 to eat out at your favourite restaurant. And it costs you £50 to eat out at your second favourite restaurant. Value comes into it, as you could eat at the second place on two occaisions which you may decide is better than once at your favourite.

If your budget for an engagement ring is £100 and there's a really nice ring for £100 and your second favourite ring is £50. Don't even think about the £50 one on the basis that at that price you could get engaged to two girls!