I know quite a few people whose wedding bands are worth thousands of dollars. They look great and to them, it’s probably worth every penny. After all, the rings do signify love until death do them apart so it naturally makes sense for it to be a long lasting expensive piece of jewelry. For me personally, I opted for a cheaper, but still durable and long lasting titanium wedding band, for less than $15 shipped.

Prior to buying this ring, I asked many of my guy friends and most agreed with me that buying the cheaper ring made sense. When I approached my gal friends about it, they hollered, screeched, and gave me the evil eye for even considering such a thing.

1. Weddings are expensive – Unless you go to Vegas or your local courthouse to get married, planning for a ceremony can be expensive. For my wedding, our original budget was $30,000, including everything wedding related.  This includes wedding rings (not engagement ring), wedding dress, tux rentals, catering, ballroom rental, flowers, etc. etc. We had modified it since then to see if we could do it for under $25,000. But as planning progressed, I saw our budget slowly increase little by little. Now that the wedding is just over a month away, we’re seeing our budget slowly approach the $30,000 mark again. So, with weddings being so expensive, it’s only natural to try to save money wherever and whenever you can. I was even able to convince my fiance to go a little on the less expensive side for her band. Our original budget was $1500 for both of our rings. We only paid less than 1/10th of the cost of her  engagement ring for her band. For me, I spent $15.

2. Men lose rings – I have read that 13% of men lose their wedding rings within the first three months of marriage. Additionally, men in average lose their wedding rings about 7 times throughout their lifetime. That’s 7 times! To spend a lot of money on something only to lose it seven times seems ridiculous to me. With my ring costing only $15, I don’t have to worry about losing it too much. I even considered buying a few of these at the same time just in case I ended up losing one.

3. Titanium and tungsten carbide rings are strong and durable – You don’t have to go with the expensive platinum or gold. Titanium are very strong and almost scratch resistant. It also weighs almost nothing. Tungsten carbide is even stronger than titanium and is scratch-proof, but weighs about 5x heavier than titanium. The only reason titanium and tungsten carbide are significantly cheaper than platinum or gold is  not because of the integrity of the material, but because of their availability. They are abundant while platinum and gold are rare.

Summer is finally over and Fall has arrived. Financially, it has been very difficult summer for me as I spent money left and right, depleting my savings by more than 75%. How did you do? Were you able to save money this past summer or were you like me spent your savings away? Don’t get me wrong though. There was a reason and purpose behind every big purchase I made. Allow me to explain more in detail.

Engagement Ring

Proposing to my then girlfriend was expensive, but I can’t really consider that a normal expense. It’s not like I bought a toy I really didn’t need. Getting married is a part of every person’s life and is something you don’t do every day. I consider the engagement ring a once in a lifetime purchase that I have been saving up for this very occasion. Because this was such a big purchase, my goal was to find the best bargain I could find. I met my goal of $7,500 total purchase by buying the diamond separately online and then the setting at a local jewelry store. If I were to buy the same ring at my jewelry store, I would’ve paid about 15% more than what I actually paid. So in reality, I feel like I actually saved money on this one.

Mortgage Refinance

The mortgage rates dropped tremendously this summer and is still currently near its all time low at around 4.25-4.35%. So, when I discovered that I could refinance my current mortgage at 4.375%, I jumped on it. I would save over $200/mo and would only  require about 18 months to recoup all of the expenses associated with it. The most I wanted to pay out of pocket was $6,000 to keep my total financed amount low, but due to some mis-communication with my loan officer, I ended up paying almost $9,000. This really put a dent into my savings, but it’s not like the money was thrown away. It’s just a small difference between liquidity and cash flow.

New Car

Three weeks ago, I bought a brand new 2010 Nissan Rogue. So far, the car runs great, probably because it’s brand new. I just hope that I can get over 200,000 miles on this one. My previous car, 2003 Mazda 6 was traded in after 138,000 miles. I think it could’ve lasted another 20,000 miles or so after repairs, but I really didn’t want to invest any more money in repairs for a car that was getting beat up every day. So instead, I opted to trade it in for $3,000 and use that as part of my down payment into my new Rogue. I added another $3,000 cash down payment to keep my monthly payments affordable.

So, if you add up all the money I spent this summer, it comes to a whopping total of $19,500. Yikes! It’s going to be very difficult to make up this difference to have a net positive savings by the end of the year, but we’ll see. If you have a single income just coming from your day job, savings may be somewhat difficult. But for those who have supplemental income from their side business, savings will become easier. You can purchase Empire Building Kit to get a jump start on your side business right away.

How did you do financially this past summer?

In light of planning for the wedding, I just opened Discover Bank online savings account. There were so many to choose from, such as Everbank and Ally, and also ING Direct. I chose Discover Bank due to their high yield rate and low initial deposit to get things started. Since this is my short term solution to help me save money for my wedding and honeymoon, I wanted to open Everbank, which offers 1.51% average for the first year. But I could not afford the $1,500 initial deposit. I’m still kicking myself in the head because I believe I budgeted well for the engagement ring, but poorly for the wedding.

I plan to dump all of the money I save every month in this new account. This savings account along with tax returns and potential additional tax benefits for filing jointly will help me reach my financial goal to help pay for the wedding and honeymoon.

Update (July 9, 2010)

When you sign up for Discover Bank Online Savings Account, you’ll start accruing interest immediately at 1.35% apr. To read my full review on other high-yield online savings account, read my previous post entitled, Highest Rate High-Yield Savings Account. You’ll be required to fund your account of at least $500. I funded my account by simply providing my bank information. I plan on starting out with $500 and depositing whatever amount I save every month into this account. If I save $1 this month, that’s the amount I will transfer. Also, one thing I wasn’t very clear on was online access to my account. Apparently, when you sign up for the savings account, you don’t create a user name and password. You have to register your account at Discover Bank Online Access Account. They don’t give you your full account number until your funds are fully transferred, in which they will send you a welcoming kit with the account number included. So, today, I received an email saying that my funds have been fully transferred and that the welcoming kit has been sent. It’s a little annoying, but sometimes, to save money, it becomes annoying.

I’m in a unique situation where getting married will actually benefit me in terms of tax returns. Typically, when two people get married, they will have to pay a small marriage tax fee when they file jointly, mainly because of dual income status. But for me, my fiancee is a student and currently has zero income. When we get married early next year, I’ll be the sole source of income so there will be some tax benefit for both of us when we file jointly. Whether we get married in January or June or December, it does not matter because the benefit will kick in for the entire calendar year for the year we are married. Since we are deciding to get married in 2011, we’ll only see tax benefits for 2011 and so on, provided that she does not work full time. If, however, we decide to push the wedding forward and get married in December 2010, we’ll take advantage of the tax benefit for the entire 2010. So, with that said, how much is the tax benefit and is it worth the effort of getting married early?

Last year my taxable income was $36,575. If I assume the same income this year and file jointly by getting married in December 2010, I’ll be in the 15% tax bracket. The tax I will be required to pay is $1,675 plus 15% of the difference between $36,575 and $16,750. The total I will owe comes out to $4,649.

Now, if I were to remain single this year by getting married next year, I will be in the 25% tax bracket as a single person and be required to pay $5,325. So, by marrying this year, I’ll save $676. For my income bracket, there is no tax benefit in the state of Maryland. I don’t think $676 is high enough for us to go through all the trouble of trying to marry early. However, what we can do is get married in the courthouse, legally, in December and then have the normal wedding ceremony at the regular scheduled time frame. $676 is low, but I’m looking for any possible way to save money and to meet wedding budget. For some others, it might be enough to give it a consideration. When I first performed this calculation, I used gross income and thought I would save over $4,000.

If you’re not happy with these tax rates, perhaps you can research which nations have the lowest tax rates by country. But soon, I think you’ll realize that we actually don’t have it that bad compared to other countries with higher tax rates.

I asked my girlfriend to be my wife and she said…YES! Now comes the stress and agony of preparing for the wedding! I just came back from a friend’s wedding this past weekend and it was a lot of fun. They told me that they spent about $23,000 for the entire wedding and reception for about 230 people, equating to $100/head. This is I think pretty reasonable. They were able to get a massive discount for having the wedding in the middle of a holiday weekend, which I might have to consider for my wedding.

I was smart by saving early for the engagement ring but I forgot to consider saving for the wedding ceremony and reception. So, I’m in a big hole to start things off. We haven’t set the wedding date yet, but I figure we’ll give it about 8 months or so from today, giving us about spring time of 2011 time frame. My goal right now is to be able to have $10,000 available to spend on the wedding. Our wedding budget is still unknown because my folks and her folks will talk things over and come to an agreement on how to finance for the wedding. I don’t expect them to pay for everything, so having some money available will be nice and will relieve some burdens off of the parents. On top of that, I also want to have about $5,000 available for the honeymoon. Since my fiance will be in school during the spring time, we might have to postpone the honeymoon until the summer, which will give me more time to try to save up as much money as possible. So, essentially, I would need to save $15,000 in about 1 year. It’ll be hard, but I think I can do it.

How To Save For Wedding

My plan is to open up a brand new online savings account, probably Discover Bank or Everbank, due to their high-yield return, and dump all of my savings into that account. My other savings account will just sit there and collect interest in the mean time. Currently, I have been saving about $800-$1300 every month so all of that will go into my new savings account. If things are tight, I will probably need to re-evaluate my budget spreadsheet so I can save a little more every month. At this rate, by the time spring rolls around, I will have $10,000 saved up. For $5,000 needed for the honeymoon, I will probably need to rely heavily on my tax returns. I will also continue to save for couple more months at $800-$1300 so I think I will be OK in that category as well.

That’s what I’m thinking at the top of my head at the moment and plans will most likely change. But what’s for sure is that I need a good financial plan and need to stick to it no matter what. Any suggestions or ideas would be much appreciated.

I finally bought my diamond for the engagement ring. It’s a beauty and I think I got a real good price for it. If you haven’t done your homework, finding the perfect ring can be a very stressful ordeal even when you know all the characteristics you’re looking for in the diamond. Knowing the four C’s of the diamond is a good start, but oftentimes, if you want that perfect diamond, you need to go above and beyond the four C’s.

The diamond I bought is a 1.20 Carat, cushion Cut, G Color, and VS1 Clarity. This completes the 4 C’s category, but there were so many diamonds with these exact specifications that varied in price drastically from one diamond to another. I had to believe that there were other factors that affected the price of the diamond, beyond the 4 C’s. For each of the different cuts available in a diamond, the perfect specifications beyond the 4 C’s vary for different type of cuts.

Measurements

For the cushion cut, the more square the diamond is, the better it is. Some prefer more elongated shape, but that can be reserved for other cuts, such as pear, emerald, oval, and marquise cuts. The less square the cuts are, the less the quality of the diamond becomes.

Depth and Table Ratio

The depth and table of the diamond are important factors to consider because they help reflect the light back to your eye to maximize the sparkling effect. If these ratios are not within a good range, the diamond will lose the sparkling effect and the quality of the diamond will become less. The depth ratio is the ratio of the total depth and the total width (or diameter). The table ratio is the ratio of the total table width and the total width (or diameter). The numbers you should look for differs for each type of cut.

Fluorescence

If the diamond has any fluorescence effect, it loses quality value. You want to avoid diamonds with fluorescence. Under natural light conditions, diamonds by nature give off a blue hue and can be more evident under a UV lamp (or black light). The more blue it gives off, the lower the quality of the diamond. Fluoresce will interfere with the flow of light in higher color grades and should be avoided at all costs.

Polish and Symmetry

Look for “Very Good” or “VG” under polish and symmetry. Anything beyond that, the diamond will lose its brilliance. If you have to go lower, then “Good” should be the absolute minimum. I wouldn’t even bother looking at other ratings lower than that. Polish and symmetry mean exactly what you think they mean. The better polished the diamond is, the better the diamond it will be. The more symmetrical the diamond is, the better the diamond it will be.

Buy Your Diamond Online

I would highly recommend buying your diamond online. Not only is it much cheaper than buying it from your local jewelry store, the range of selections of diamonds is unlimited. Perhaps, that’s why I struggled so much purchasing my diamond. But I am confident to say that the diamond I purchased is the perfect diamond I was looking for. I recommend buying from Blue Nile. They’re not the cheapest in the world of web shopping, but they are competitive. Also, if you use your Discover Card and shop through their shopping portal, you can earn 5% cash back on your purchase. So, if you make a $5,000 purchase, you will receive $250 cash back if you use ShopDiscover portal through Discover.com. If you don’t have a Discover Card, you can sign up here.

You can read up on other posts in the Diamond Buying Experience Series:

The Four C’s

Examining The Certificates

Beyond The Four C’s

This is a continuation of my previous post on my Diamond Buying Experience Series. You can refer to my previous post on the Four C’s of a diamond. Once you have the basics of the diamond all figured out, examining the diamond report is very important as well. A diamond report or certificate is an official document that proves the validity and the proof of the diamond. It provides all of the necessary grades for each of the important aspects that make up the integrity and quality of the diamond, including the four C’s as mentioned previously. More importantly, it indicates all of the necessary dimensions of the crystal as well as the location of the imperfections and blemishes inside the diamond. It’s for these reasons why it is important to look  and examine the certificate carefully.

As you can see on the sample picture on the right, all of the different types of imperfections indicated on the diagram. Ideally, you don’t want any blemishes, but that can be very costly and expensive. But if you can find a diamond with blemishes on the side of the diamond (girdle), then that would be the next best thing. The diagram is an excerpt from a sample GIA report. Every report from different grading institutions are different and provide different information. They each have their own grading system so it’s very hard to compare them side by side.

GIA

GIA stands for Gemological Institute of America, is the world’s foremost authority in gemology, diamond grading, jewelry education, and gemology research. If you’re looking for a diamond, make sure that it is graded by GIA. They are the most accurate and reliable source for diamond grading. There are other institutions out there such as AGS, ELG AGA, and HRD, but I wouldn’t recommend any of them. You can learn more about other laboratories here.

You can read up on other posts in the Diamond Buying Experience Series:

The Four C’s

Examining The Certificates

Beyond The Four C’s

Before going to your favorite jeweler, do yourself a favor and at least educate yourself on the 4 C’s of a diamond: Carat, Color, Cut, and Clarity. When I visited a local jeweler with my girlfriend to take a quick peek at engagement rings, we had no idea what we were looking for. The very first question the nice lady asked me was what carat, color, clarity, and cut of a diamond we were interested in. My response to that was a simple shrug of my shoulders. We confessed we had no idea what she was talking about and that we needed all the help we could get to find our perfect diamond After explaining to us what these terms meant, we felt a little better, but still had no idea what we wanted. We went home that day scratching our heads confused but after researching a bit online, we had better idea as to what to look for in a diamond. Allow me to briefly explain what I’ve discovered on each of these four C’s.

Carat

A carat is a measure of weight and is equivalent to 0.20 grams. This is basically the weight of the diamond. The heavier and bigger the diamond, the more expensive it becomes with all other things considered same. Some people refer to the weight of a diamond as “points” where 1 carat equals to 100 points. Also consider that since larger diamonds are more rare than smaller diamonds, a 2 carat single diamond is worth significantly  more than two diamonds weighing 2 carats total. Just in case you were curious, the average carat size men bought their future wives in America is around 0.4 carats and spent just over $2000 on the entire ring.

Color

Ideally, if the diamond has no color, it is then perfect. This grading is defined with a letter “D”. D is the best color grading you can achieve in a diamond. As you go up in letters, the grading goes down. Z is the worst grading. Typically, you won’t see Z grading anywhere in the US. Most popular ones range from D-J and the value, considering all else same, decreases as it gets closer to J. Colors ranging from D-F fall into the same category of Colorless, and G-J fall into Near Colorless. Beyond those two categories, the colors become more yellow as you go down the scale. The average American purchased an H or I diamond.

Cut

A cut of a diamond generally refers to how well proportioned it is. An Excellent cut is the best cut you will be able to find. It is perfect and the angles of each part of the diamond, along with their corresponding symmetries and depth allow the light the reflect in a way that is ideal. If the diamond is cut too shallow, or too uneven (not very symmetrical), the light being absorbed will not be reflected or dispersed optimally, thus not giving good sparkle to the diamond. The grading goes down to Very Good, Good, and Fair. The value of the diamond decreases with lower grades, with all else being equal. I would recommend a cut of “Very Good” if you can not afford “Excellent”. Beyond that, you will be able to notice the difference in brilliance or sparkle with the naked eye.

Clarity

Even though a diamond has highest color rating with the most excellent cut, there can still be imperfections or inclusions within the diamond. These inclusions include air bubbles, cracks, scratches,  and chips. Some of these inclusions appear at the time of cutting the diamond. Others are just naturally there. But whatever the case may be, the more inclusions you have, the lower the clarity level it becomes. Granted, most of these inclusions are invisible to the naked eye but can be easily seen with the 10x magnifying glass. The highest grade you can achieve is “F” which refers to Flawless. This grade is extremely rare, as no diamond is ever perfect. The next grade is “IF” meaning “Internally Flawless”. Then it goes down to “VVS” and “VS”, “Very Very Slightly Included” and “Very Slightly Included” respectively. Then it becomes Slightly Included (SI) and Included (I). At SI and I ratings, the inclusions become more visible with the naked eye and very visible with the 10x magnifying glass. I would suggest staying above VS, but SI diamonds will still have their sparkles preserved.

Two More C’s

The ratings for each of the 4 C’s described above is associated with GIA certification  standards. They exist to help consumers be more educated on diamond quality and provide official diamond certification. This is one of the other C’s, Certification. When purchasing a diamond, make sure it is properly certified. Request a GIA report on the diamond you were looking to purchase. If not GIA, there are other institutions that defines the diamond quality. However, I would only recommend GIA certified diamonds as they are proven to be the industry leader.

The last C refers to cost. Despite all of the grading categories, make sure you don’t spend too much money and go over your budget. Of all the women I asked, they all said they rather have smaller diamond that is excellent in quality over bigger diamond with lower quality. So if the diamond you want to purchase is out of your budget, look to decrease in carat weight and preserve the other C’s.

Still Looking

I have yet to find the perfect diamond. I am still looking but I am very close. I have already budgeted for the ring as I have been saving up for it for awhile. This will be a significant purchase but if you’re smart with your finances, you should be OK. I recommend an online diamond search engine, pricescope. When you filter the type of ring you want, it provides a list of all the rings available and the online company, along with the price, you can purchase it at. You will notice that Abazias is listed quite often from the search engine. They are a very reputable online diamond company and one of the industry leaders.

So I’ve been in a serious relationship with my girlfriend for 11 months now and the big M word has been popping up for a while. That only means that I should’ve already considered to save up a considerable amount of money to purchase a diamond engagement ring.

So How Big Of A Diamond?

I’ve h eard so many times that the guy should invest 2-3 months of his salary for a diamond ring. Ok, my next question is…net or gross salary?? According to this one site, groomgrove.com, it’s 2-months of gross salary, not net. They even have an online calculator on how much you should spend based on your salary. I don’t know how came up with this rule, but I think it’s kind of silly. If your salary is $1M, it’s hard to imagine buying a ring that costs almost $200K. In reality, American men in 2007 spent an average of $2,100 on engagement rings. If the formula holds true, average men in 2007 made only $12,600 annually. Seems kind of low.

Ring Shopping

In the old days, I’ve heard that men just went out of their way and bought an engagement ring without learning from her what kind of ring she desires.  I think this is a big mistake. If I’m going to spend a lot of money on the ring, I’m going to make certain that it’s exactly what she wants. It’s like buying a car. If I want to buy an SUV, why would I buy a 2-door coupe? Same goes for a ring. Why would I buy her a round-cut diamond if what she really want is a cushion-cut?

So my girlfriend and I decided to go look at rings and diamonds together. The first place we went to was Charleston Alexander, a huge diamond jeweler in  Bethesda, just outside of Washington, DC. The diamonds we looked at were 1.0 carat, 1.25 carat, and a 1.50 carat, priced at $6,000, $8,000, and $12,000 respectively. Let me remind you that this was just the diamond, without the setting band. That’s a different story for some other time. They were offering some discount so we received a bottom line price of $6,500 for the 1.25 carat diamond, which is something I can definitely afford.

After we left, we planned on visiting a few other stores just to see what kind of deals they will offer and then select the most comfortable and affordable place to make the purchase. After the initial visit, I think I have a pretty good idea on the price range I am looking to spend.

How To Budget For An Engagement Ring

I am currently 32 years old and luckily for me, I’ve been budgeting smart by setting aside a few dollars here and there for the course of many years just for this purpose. Even when I wasn’t involved in a relationship, I still deposited a few dollars every month into my ING Direct account. My goal was to have at least $5,000 in the account by the time I was ready to bend down on one knee. My plan was to use that money to help me avoid financing for the ring. I wanted to pay up front, probably with both my credit cards, Discover and Chase so I can at least receive some cash back rewards. I will just have to tap into my savings to pay the remainder of the difference if I spend over $5,000.

Read my supplemental post on my engagement ring buying experience.

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