The three months' salary rule makes things simple. It is a guideline for how much to spend on an engagement ring. You spend three months’ salary. There you go. It’s all figured out for you now.
Easy peasey lemon squeezy.
Uh… except if you use that guideline, you’re just basing your purchase on an advertising campaign that’s almost a hundred years old now.
See, the three months’ guideline isn’t based on logic or, for that matter, on anything other than an attempt by diamond retailers to get more money from a customer. It originated in the 1930s as a marketing campaign by De Beers, the largest diamond syndicate in the world. The De Beers monopoly was (and is) very effective at increasing diamond sales and the amount people spend for each diamond.
In fact, the three months’ rule increased revenue from diamond sales by a remarkable fifty percent!
That’s right, and that’s the purpose. It’s not to help you. It’s not because someone did a survey of all the people spending money on engagement rings. It’s not about that at all. It was just to increase the money people spent on diamonds.
Some people say that it makes things simpler and gives a good benchmark. Well, if you make a hundred thousand dollars per year, should you spend twenty-five thousand on an engagement ring? If you’re looking for an engagement ring in San Diego, are people walking around with rings that expensive? The average salary in San Diego is forty-five to fifty thousand dollars a year. Does everyone you see walk around wearing a twelve-thousand-dollar ring? Of course not.
Ignore the three months’ guideline. That’s my advice. Sure, that means when you buy an engagement ring from me, you’ll spend less. Okay. I can live with that. I’m not interested in making a quick buck. You know what I like? I like sleeping well at night and never feeling guilty for convincing young couples to go into debt or start their marriages off on poor financial footing.
Determine a budget that works for you and keep in mind you can always upgrade your ring later. If you’re looking for an engagement ring in San Diego, you don’t need to think about three months’ salary. You need to think about financial stability as you start your new, wonderful, romantic adventure together.
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