Question for the men....
 

(I know, this technically should be in the D&R forum, but here it'd get more responses)

How much would you pay for a CUSTOM engagement ring?

Just a roundabout average will do :)

I'll post my reasoning after a few prices are given! :)

Re: Question for the men....
 

The cost of an engagement ring is roughly equal to whatever the devil pays for your soul.

-Rudey

$0.25

It would depend on my income and my current sense of the ridiculous. Some prices can be insanely high for a temporay symbol of committment.

Also . . isn't it kind of rude for a girl to pick out a ring the man has to buy?

In all the old movies the guy would surprise the girl with the ring. . . you never saw Cary Grant ring shopping with his GF.

3 months salary

It depends on how much oral i could expect from her


and if you are looking for a serious answer. i would say, it would have to vary on how much he was making.
right now with my income, its lookin more like ring pops for my lady.

Honestly, I paid what it took to get a good quality ring (within my income - a ring's not worth anything if you have no place to live). The problem is that there are a lot of crappy rings and stones out there, and you really have to go somewhere where they won't take advantage of you. Or, you have to bring someone along who knows something about diamonds and diamond quality.

I'm not a guy but I thought I'd post.

I have no idea what was spent on mine but I know someone who spent around $6000...by the way I think that is REGODDAMDICULOUS!!!

Ooooh, I like the way you think! :p I always heard it was 2 months' salary, but hey...

some of the responses from the GC gentlemen (bobby, rudey) made me CRACK UP laughing. :) and with the night im having i needed it....


In all seriousness, I feel that a man should spent what he can AFFORD on a ring (i.e. dont go homeless or starve) and if and when the choice comes down to quality or size, choose quality no matter the ending result.. and if the girl is not satisfied with what you give her, then (this will sound mean) but maybe it should be considered why a ring was given to her in the first place. IMHO a ring is not about sparkles and size...it should be about the meaning behind it. I told my boyfriend he could propose with a twistie tie and i would say yes... I know he isnt going to do that...but it made him feel alot more comfortable knowing i wasnt concerned with getting a huge rock...

GOOD LUCK with your ring search

Thanks for some of your responses!

Oh, I'm already engaged, so it's not a ring search for me :p

My fiance (who some of you know from the D&R forum made my ring) and I are in the beginnings of a custom jewelry business. We decided that our focus (for now) is going to be e-rings and we're just asking around and researching the "basic" price range that we'd be working with. ;)

Uh, if they're custom, I would imagine that you would dictate your own pricing, based on hourly rate, detail, difficulty, and market.

It seems pretty salient, but them's the facts. Custom.

That's true and we know that, it's just that we just don't want to have an overstock of unsold items, ya know? We want to find the basic price to play around with.

My current bf (all of 5 days) is making $3000 a month, maybe I should stick with him, lol. A $6,000-$9,000 engagement ring... that could be nice!

Hahahaha! This is mean, but cracked me up.

AHHAHAAHAHA

-- yet another evil lie perpetrated by the jewelry industry.

Does this 2 months salary mean after taxes and 401K deductions? It doesn't include end-of-year bonus either right? Because if that's the case I'm going to deduct everything, make bad stock picks and show a net loss for the year.

-Rudey

Exactly - if you go someplace reputable, and do your homework, you can get a very nice ring without bankrupting yourself. There's no magic number, unless you're just greedy.

Also, James - I've heard of a lot of people doing that, taking their fiancee with them to pick out the ring. I didn't want to go about it that way, but it happens frequently.

But $3,000 a month? That's killer. I do sympathize with him though as my annual bonus might be as big (hopefully) as his annual salary.

Now for the ladies. Take this as you wish but I hear all kinds of talk about expensive rings and big diamonds. Many of you should be so lucky as to even get a ring! Let alone an expensive one with a rock the size of one of Jenna Jameson's boobs.

Seriously - this talk of a "proper" ring is kind of funny.

Sounds like a good enough salary to me (I want to teach :) ) ... which is why I'm engaged to an engineer.

My best friend has a really gorgeous ring that suits her perfectly, she would not want anything else, we all think it's gorgeous - and it was $1500. I HATE girls who think they are entitled to huge rocks.

My boyfriend, while slightly more balling than CUgreekgirl's, isn't making a ton of money and has law school loans to pay off. I would think he was stupid if he spent as much money as some girls on here seem to think is necessary.

LOL I didn't do it to make fun of people that don't make money. I just thought it was strange making that out to be a high salary. I erased it anyway :)

Guys convince your fiances that your religion only allows sterling silver with cubic zirconia rings and be done with it.

-Rudey

Oh for sure. I read the post like "my guy makes 3,000 a month and homie is bling bling balling" or something like that.

Shit, I didn't mean to make it seem like he was some kind of a millionaire. But that is actually a pretty decent salary down here. My single parent mom made half that a year and we were considered upper middle class. Cost of living here is cheap as hell. You can get a nice, new 4bedroom, 3 bathroom house on a couple acres of land for less thant $100,000. Plus, He just started out in his current job. With two degrees he'd better be making more than that soon.

Um, I don't think $18,000 a year is upper middle class anywhere, seeing as though that is barely above the poverty line.

http://aspe.hhs.gov/poverty/05poverty.shtml

So true. My engagement ring was about $2100. I think that's a lot, but it's a ring I had said I liked and he actually remembered and got it for me. It's not too huge, but not too small and I'd love it even if it was $200.

There are places in south Georgia where you definitely wouldn't be too bad off ...

Yeah? Is it called Somalia, Georgia?

LOL, you kids are too much for me today. I need to focus on work so I can make the bling bling.

Upper-middle class is the way to be when your takin' in that bling bling 18Gs.

Not everyone is a high priced transvestite hooker like you.

-Rudey

I learned the tricks from you Ms. Fleiss

You work in my brothel you ingrate.

-Rudey

To be fair, I think the "CU" in CUGreekGirl's name stands for Clemson University...so I could only assume then that her boyfriend also graduated from Clemson and possibly works in South Carolina.

The average salary for the state of SC is like $26,000. So, a salary of $36,000 is quite nice for that state.

Of course, I am assuming they're in SC.

edited 'cause I gave CUGreekGirl a fiance instead of a boyfriend. :)

Here are just a few counties in South Georgia selected at random from the US Census webpage ...

Laurens County, GA: Per capita money income, 1999 $16,763
Crisp County, GA: Per capita money income, 1999 $14,695
Coffee County, GA: Per capita money income, 1999 $15,530
Mitchell County, GA: Per capita money income, 1999 $13,042

If you'd like to look at some more counties, feel free: http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/13/13205.html

In Sudan, that's pretty good money.

SUDAN NOT IN AMERICA!
I LIKE AMERICA ONLY!

xenophobe.

My sister has a few friends who moved to Atlanta, GA because their salaries were about the same as NYC, but the cost of living was less. I had no idea how inexpensive it is in Atlanta when compared to NYC until I looked at the Atlanta statistics on this website.

Xylophone!