Guys always seem to have a tough time coming up with the right amount they need to save when buying an engagement ring. Even though there’s lots of information online about this topic, we often get mixed messages and it’s difficult to tell the true amount a guy needs to save in order to get a great engagement ring for his soon-to-be spouse as long as she says yes.
With that in mind, there are a couple of ways to approach how much you should budget for an engagement ring. Again, people are going to have different methodologies and techniques for coming up with this number, but I ultimately like to tell guys to work off of more of a gut feeling. They need to trust their instincts and use their personal intuition to determine if a ring is in the right price range or not.
If you’re wondering how to use your intuition to figure out how much to budget for an engagement ring, it’s actually a lot easier to figure out than you think. Plus I’m going to give you other information as well to help you make this important decision, but ultimately I’ll teach you how to learn to trust your intuition, which is important in this scenario.
Typical Advice on How Much You Should Spend to Buy an Engagement Ring
If you’re going to ask for average and ordinary advice on how much you should spend on an engagement ring, you’ll typically come across the same tried-and-true answer on the Internet. This answer tells you to save up for three months and use that portion of your salary to buy the engagement ring.
Does that sound like a good idea to you? If alarm bells immediately go off for one reason or another, then this method probably doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to you. If you happen to be rich and have lots of money, you might think three months is too little to spend on a ring for the woman you love. And if you’re not that well-off, you’ll know if three months’ salary is much too much to spend and you’ll have to adjust your thinking accordingly. Maybe you can finance the engagement ring?
The Best Way to Figure out How Much to Budget for an Engagement Ring
At the end of the day, you want to get your significant other the best ring that you can afford without having to take out a second mortgage on your house or borrow money from the Mafia! So here’s what I want you to do…
Visit your favorite online engagement ring website. Start looking around at the rings on their site and see if anything really jumps out at you. More often than not, you’re going to have a reaction based on two specific characteristics.
First, you’re going to really love the way the ring looks and believe it would be the perfect match for your better half. Second, you’re going to notice the price and see that it’s right in your price range.
So use this method to determine how much you should budget for an engagement ring. If you do, you can’t go wrong, and forget what everybody else is saying.
James Hendrickson is an internet entrepreneur, blogging junky, hunter and personal finance geek. When he’s not lurking in coffee shops in Portland, Oregon, you’ll find him in the Pacific Northwest’s great outdoors. James has a masters degree in Sociology from the University of Maryland at College Park and a Bachelors degree on Sociology from Earlham College. He loves individual stocks, bonds and precious metals.