Set the Budget

Setting a realistic budget and sticking to it is a really important step. You need to decide the maximum that you are willing to spend on the engagement ring. Discussed below are some of the common perceptions of how to arrive at the figure.

Month's Salary is a Marketing Ruse

Diamonds were first marketed with a vengeance back in the late 1920s in America. Film stars and celebrities were plied with diamond jewellery to increase the pubic awareness and desire for it.

It is believed that the advertising agency hired by de Beers at this time was the source of the “rule-of-thumb” that a loving boyfriend should purchase a diamond ring worth at least a month of his salary for his fiancée-to-be.

This has certainly been perpetuated and reinforced because I have had friends explain to me that it is actually 2 or even 3 months salary spent on the ring.

It was a fantastic piece of marketing because it ensured that the minimum spend on each diamond bought was likely to be a month of the average gentleman’s salary, because no loving boyfriend would not want to conform to the public (and his girlfriend’s) perception of how much should be spent if he was truly in love with the woman.

Don’t be suckered into this marketing ruse.

Keeping Up With the Jones’

“Keeping up with the Jones’” is the phenomenon whereby a person tries to maintain his/her social status through purchasing something just because his peers, neighbours or friends have also bought the same thing.

Adopting this philosophy is sure to cause massive pain to your bank balance throughout your life and not just when it comes to buying your better half her ring.

My best advice for you is forget about what your peers are doing and find out what your girlfriend’s expectations are, and then aim to meet or exceed them.

Find Out Her Expectations

What does your girlfriend expect in terms of an engagement ring? Have you seen her point out engagement rings belonging to her friends before, or maybe rings in a jewellery shop window?

She will have a certain minimum size that she deems is acceptable, that she has arrived at from what her friends have, what she sees in the media and what she knows about the High Street cost of diamonds.

Knowing what you now know about the factors that influence the price of a diamond, you know that size (carat) of the diamond is only one part of the price equation. As diameter of the diamond is the most obvious outward appearance it will probably be the most common thing that your girlfriend comments on.

Once you know roughly what diameter diamond she expects you can then set about matching that diameter with the correct proportions, clarity, colour, and category of retailer so as to pull her perfect diamond ring back into your budget.

If you also spend time educating her about diamonds, it is highly likely that she revises what she wanted in the first place.

In this way your girlfriend gets what she wants, you get what you want, and she is massively impressed by how much effort you have put into researching this most important of purchases and how far you are willing to go to get her the perfect diamond!