Let’s set the stage: you’ve found the one human you want to spend the rest of your life with, and now you’re looking for the one ring to rule them all, one ring to find them, and one ring to bring them, and in the darkness bind them. Or more likely, you’re just looking for an engagement to propose with. As you prepare to pop the question, you may puzzle over how much to budget and spend on the engagement ring. Below, we cover some general rules of thumb about what you should budget for the bling, as well as some realistic advice from our own experience.
What is the average cost of an engagement ring?
I looked this up for this article, and the amount surprised me. Given the rules of thumb below, it probably shouldn’t have, but my frugal little soul wasn’t ready to see this number, so hold on to your butt:
Based on The Knot’s 2025 real weddings study, the proposer spends an average of $5,200 on an engagement ring.
Am I crazy, or does that feel like a lot?
The most interesting thing I learned from The Knot’s data is that this is actually a decline, likely thanks to an increase in popularity of lab-grown diamonds. The average in 2021 was $6,000. When they looked at the average of what a lab-grown versus mined diamond cost in 2024, the average was $4,900 versus $7,600.
What is the three month salary rule for buying an engagement ring?
This was the rule-of-thumb guidance I grew up hearing. The “rule” is exactly what it sounds like. Someone—a jewelry store chain, most likely—suggested you should budget 3 months of your income (presumably your take-home pay) on an engagement ring.
So: fact or crap?
In some situations, it may be true. After all, even a broken clock is right twice a day. But this is an arbitrary guideline that likely doesn’t make sense for most people.
I don’t remember what my husband made when we got engaged, but he was an engineer a few years into his career, so he was making decent cheddar. We’ll use an avatar similar to his as an example to walk through numbers below.
The national average entry-level engineer salary is around $70,000 – $80,000, so let’s throw Chris Voss’s advice out the window and split the difference, calling it $75,000.
We lived in Florida, which has no state or local income taxes, yeay. This let him keep more of his money. His net pay would have been around $60,000 after taxes, so let’s use that.
Under the three month salary rule, he “should” have budgeted $15,000 for my engagement ring.
Just typing that number makes my eyes bug out and my chest compress. I can’t imagine the stress of wearing a $15,000 ring and worrying about it getting scratched, getting lost, or stolen.
0 out of 5 stars, would not recommend this budget to a friend.
Now, if he had still been a student at the time and was only working part time at Target? Maybe three months of pay would have been a little easier to stomach, although I wouldn’t have wanted him to go into debt to buy my ring.
How many months of salary should you budget for an engagement ring?
This depends, and you shouldn’t necessarily determine your budget based on your monthly income, though your salary (and your savings ability) both come into play.
Should my now husband have spent one month’s salary instead? This is becoming a more common guideline.
For his $60,000 after-tax salary, one month’s take-home pay would have been around $5,000.
While this is more in line with the average engagement ring purchase, even at one month’s salary, the anxiety demon is jumping on my intestines again.
$5,000 would have been worth more than my car or anything else I owned in my 20s when we got engaged. This might make sense for a lot of people, but it wasn’t practical for us.
Seriously though, just tell me: how much should I spend on an engagement ring?
Okay, okay. Let’s look at what you should do to set a realistic budget for an engagement ring.
Fair warning, you may not like my answer, because it’s super vague. The reality is, there’s no “right” amount that you “should” spend, so don’t should all over yourself.
You “should” spend whatever you (and your future spouse) are comfortable with, and whatever you can reasonably budget and save up.
As you explore what that limit might be, a word of warning: the engagement ring is just the beginning. Because the engagement ring is for an engagement to get married. And getting married usually means a wedding (and wedding rings, too). If you need Pepto engagement ring shopping, just wait until you wade into the wedding pool. Don’t make this decision without looking at the full picture.
Our rule of thumb: don’t go into debt to buy an engagement ring
If we have one guideline to rule them all instead, it’s this: whatever you’re comfortable with, make sure your bank account is comfortable with it too. While you might be more than happy to spend $5,500 on an engagement ring because you know your future wife’s face will light up and she’ll cherish that ring forever, your bank might dictate dialing it back and leaning more Cracker Jack prize versus De Beers.
As we noted above, the engagement ring is just the start. We hope you’ll try to avoid debt for the engagement ring and the wedding expenses, so factor both into the equation.
The reverse correlation approximation: spending more signifies less happiness
An engagement ring is a symbol of your commitment to someone, and I love that symbolism. To say you want to be together forever until one of you croaks: that’s a big deal. But the ring isn’t a symbol of the commitment itself. You can’t buy my love, baby. A smaller, cheaper ring doesn’t mean a smaller love or a shorter relationship. I have 0 data on this but I’d be willing to bet the data shows the opposite is true: if the cost and appearance of the engagement ring is an indicator of the future of your relationship, you’re already screwed, man. The more you care how much the ring cost, the more likely you are to have martial problems because you aren’t focusing on what matters and what’s going to help you through the tough times (and dude, marriage is tough, even the best ones).
The happiest couples I know don’t give two rips about how much was spent on their engagement rings or weddings. A few have upgraded their hardware since they got married, and we’ll talk about this in a second, but no one cared at the proposal.
Your family may care, but they don’t get an opinion, so don’t listen to them. You may care, and that’s fine, so long as your bank account can cash the check your feelings are writing. Your significant other may care, and that’s also fine, so long as it isn’t a condition of the relationship. I can’t blame her if she doesn’t want a cheap ring that will turn her finger green. But if she doesn’t accept your proposal because she doesn’t think the ring you got her is nice enough? Run dude. Run as fast as you can, and don’t look back.
How to save money on engagement rings (and wedding rings)
While I can’t give you a specific dollar amount to budget for that one ring, I want to help. Here are some tips on how to manage costs when shopping for the right ring.
- Make a budget: I feel like it goes without saying, but we’re The Budget Brigade, so I’m going to say it anyway. Start with what you can realistically afford without racking up debt and use this as your benchmark. If you already have some money outside of your emergency fund (proposing isn’t an emergency), assess if that’s enough to get a ring you like (and think your future spouse will like). If it’s not, see how much room you have in your budget that you can squirrel away. Be realistic with your timeline here, too. Don’t wait months to propose just because you want a better ring. If you’re ready to get married, get married.
- Consider manufactured gems, alternative gems & other metals: Fun fact for the fellow nerds: our wedding rings are older than the PLANET, as they’re made from meteorite. Both our wedding rings combined were about $1,000 when we bought them, and I thought even that was pretty pricey, but worth it because hello, space rock! Short story long, don’t be afraid to get creative. Apart from jewelers with one of those weird magnifying scopes, you can’t tell the difference between mined diamonds, lab-grown diamonds, cubic zirconia, or moissanite. There are great alternatives that look like diamonds but don’t cost what diamonds do. You also don’t have to go diamond at all. Consider gemstones instead (perhaps something in your significant other’s favorite color?). And you don’t need gold or platinum for the ring’s band. Explore other, cheaper options. Just because it doesn’t cost as much doesn’t mean it can’t be just as gorgeous.
- Shop around to find the best pricing and options: Each store has its own inventory and sets its own prices. Even if you could find the same ring in two different jewelry stores, they likely wouldn’t cost the same. I went into an independent store that does custom rings and found pieces for $6,000 while I found options at Target for $60. I’m not saying you should buy your engagement ring at Target, but I’m also not not saying that. If you find something you like, no judgment either way!
- Ignore the noise: As I mentioned above, ignore your family’s opinions, because they aren’t the ones paying the bill. You can be respectful about it, but letting your family get a say in this decision is setting up a bad precedent for your relationship. When family has a say in how you live your life as a married couple, you’ll likely find yourself with too many chefs in the kitchen and having dreams about stabbing one of the chefs with a knife.
- Look into vintage options (including family heirlooms): These can be a beautiful and cool piece of history, kinda like our nerdy space rings. As a bonus, these tend to be less expensive as you’re buying second hand or inheriting them from a family member. Just don’t feel pressured to take one your future spouse doesn’t like, because they’re the one who has to wear it.
How much we spent on my engagement ring
Though I know everyone has different personalities and preferences, I always like to approach a topic based on what I’d do, so I wanted to share how we (and by we, I mean mostly my now husband) approached the engagement ring budget question. This is going to be a bit of a convoluted answer, so I hope you have a few minutes (the backstory has a purpose, I swear).
I want to start off with an apology to my engagement ring. I don’t think it understood what it was getting into when my mother-in-law gave it to my husband for him to propose all those years ago.
It’s a simpler ring from a simpler time, when women weren’t as likely to be wrenching on cars. It’s a delicate, thin golden band meant for a lady, and I don’t think I’ve ever been mistaken for one of those. I’m a tomboy through and through, and the soft metal just can’t quite keep up with my lifestyle.
It broke the first time (because there’s sadly been more than one incident) in a pair of winter gloves on a hiking trip. The thin gold piece holding the diamond (which was actually cubic zirconia) to the band snapped and had to be reconnected. We spent about $150 getting the “diamond” set the first time, right after my husband proposed, and another $100-$200 to repair the band after it got caught in my gloves.
The second time, it broke in a pair of mechanic’s gloves at work. Back to the jeweler we went for yet another repair of another $100 or so. After that, I stopped wearing it on race weekends or anywhere near a racecar.
The third time it broke, I didn’t even notice it at first. I was fidgeting while brainstorming through something at my desk. When I went to smooth my finger over it, there was nothing smooth left as the “diamond” had fallen out. We spent a solid half hour looking everywhere in the apartment for it, and checked again for a few days, but it never showed up.
At this point, you know what they say. Fool me once, fool me twice… and then three strikes, you’re out. This third time, we decided you know what, this is why we don’t have nice things, and I stopped wearing it.
Upgrading your engagement ring later is always an option, but here’s why I personally haven’t
Because I’m not a lady and have been terrified of breaking the family heirloom since the first “oh crap” incident, I’ve always dreamed of “upgrading” my engagement ring to something a little more with the times AKA sturdier so the stone won’t pop off on the side of a mountain somewhere.
Maybe it would have a diamond. Not a big, flashy, expensive one that blinds your friends when the sun hits it, but something that wasn’t manufactured in the lab.
And maybe it would have some other little diamonds or sparkly knockoffs set around it, giving it some style and flair. I’ve never been super fancy, but I’ve found some pretty rings while walking by jewelry display cases in the mall.
So I’ve often joked with my husband that he should get me an upgrade. And then we got a letter in the mail that the local jeweler in town was retiring and closing up shop. 70% off, fire sale, everything must go.
Why, here was my chance. And it just so happened to be November, which is the month of the year where we celebrate Selfish Day AKA Black Friday, where we force our frugal selves to live a little and get those things we’ve been thinking about all year that we’d really like to have but haven’t wanted to spend the money on.
It was a sign from the universe that after more than 10 years together, it was finally time to upgrade that engagement ring so I’d have one I felt comfortable wearing again.
I left the letter on the kitchen island for the week leading up to the blowout sale dates. I thought about rings in passing while I cooked. Then the weekend came… and I didn’t really want to go.
After years and years of dropping hints to my husband that I’d like an upgraded ring, when it actually seemed like a reasonable time to do it… I didn’t want it anymore.
Why?
I looked at what it cost for something I’d like and thought about what other, better uses I could put that money to. I couldn’t justify the purchase anymore, even though we have the money now to afford a ring that wasn’t practical when we got engaged and were paying off student loans and saving for a home down payment.
Now don’t misread this: I’m not saying it’s wrong to want to upgrade your engagement ring when you’re in a better financial position and can afford it. If this is something you’d like (and your spouse is aligned) and you can afford, then please, do it! As soon as you can. The longer you can enjoy it, the better. But never feel pressured to. Whatever you decide to do, now or in the future, do it for yourselves. Who knows, maybe I’ll find a $60 ring at Target I like versus the $3,000 rings they had at the jewelers and change my mind again. No shame in that!
The final word
Remember an engagement ring symbolizes a promise, and I love the sentiment behind it: the willingness to commit yourself to growing and evolving with someone. But there’s no magical power in the ring itself. And spending more on a ring, now or in the future, in no way strengthens your commitment or relationship.