re: How much should I be looking to spend for an engagement ring?

When I got engaged in 1998, my (now) wife was working part time in a mall jewelry store while in college. She told me about the insane markup at jewelry stores and told me not to buy from one of those under any circumstance. I ended up finding a loose stone from a wholesaler and had it put into a setting and saved a bunch of money. She has been happy with it for 27 years now.

Now my son is ready to get engaged. I had told him what I did about his mom's ring and he asked me to help him find a good deal on a natural diamond. I started researching and found a place called Rare Carat. My son went to the local stores and figured out what he wanted in regard to size, cut, and clarity- then we found one on RC that met that criteria. They put it into a setting and shipped it overnight to the house. He took it to a local jeweler and it appraised for more than double what he paid for it.

He could have spent a lot less than he did, and he could have also spent a lot more. I feel like he got about as good of a value as he possibly could have. Comparable rings at the brick-and-mortar retail stores were pretty much twice as much.

I paid what I could afford at the time. Granted this was many years ago, but I paid like $2000 for a half karat at Delane's in Lafayette. I had a salesman try to con me into a much more expensive ring but I told him absolutely no way. Still married all these years later.

As much as you’re willing to throw away.

It's a fine question but just know if you think the number could potentially be something that matters to her you should run, and run very fast

When we got married I bought my wife a $548 ring. It’s what I could afford. 10 yrs later for our anniversary I bought her a $2000 ring to upgrade it for our 10th anniversary. Well 2 yrs ago I bought her a $30K ring on our 30th anniversary. The ring don’t make the marriage.

1-2k. If the women isn’t happy with that you found out now she’s not the one

You only make $3k a month? LOL u poor.

5-10k depending on your income and stress it puts upon your finances and ofcourse there is the Expectation of you future Wife to take into consideration some expect a big engagement ring AND a big Wedding ring
some are just Happy to get an Engagement ring and want the Wedding ring to be the Big spender ring
so 5-10k if your able to afford it work your way down depending on Resources and amount of Expectations of the Lady in question

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How much should I be looking to spend for an engagement ring?

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Depends on her body count.

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$6K normal?

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Lol