U.S. Consumers Buck Engagement Ring Cost Trends

It would appear that consumers might not value a diamond ring as much as they once did.

GOBankingRates recently conducted a survey on how much U.S. adults are willing to pay for an engagement ring, and found that one out of three Americans cited less than $1,000 as the optimal price.

This flies in the face of the traditional convention (put forth by the diamond industry) that a target price for an engagement ring should equal two months’ salary on the part of the buyer — a recommendation that only 6 percent of the respondents to the survey said they would follow.

GOBankingRates shares that the majority of the respondents (55 percent) believe that less than $3,000 is the appropriate amount to spend on an engagement ring, while 19 percent found $1,000 to $2,999 to be the appropriate range.

“The days of following ‘traditional advice’ is long over, especially for millennials struggling with student loan debt and averse to too much credit usage,” LaTisha Styles, a millennial money expert, commented to the outlet. “The Great Recession truly caused a shift in spending priorities.”

Also among the survey’s findings were that both men and women favor low-cost engagement rings, that older consumers are more likely to spend less on the item than their younger counterparts, and that consumers’ personal thresholds for spending on diamond rings vary by state.

The least popular amount to spend on an engagement ring (for both men and women), according to the survey, is $10,000 or above. Contrastingly, 16 percent of women and 18 percent of men who responded to the survey stated that money should be no object when it comes to that purchase.