My husband and I have been together for six years, and we have made some good and, yes, some bad financial choices in that time. The early years of our relationship and marriage were the honeymoon years. We traveled a lot. We spent a lot of money on restaurants and hotels, and we have a lot of good memories from that time. The last few years — namely, the last two — have given us a wakeup call.
He had a good job with a six-figure salary at a well-known software company, but he was let go in late 2022. He’s found contract work in the interim, but it pays nowhere near what he used to earn. I work as a freelance writer and copy editor and I have a travel concierge business on the side. We have quite a bit of debt, but not a lot of cash — about $4,600 in cash and $9,400 on credit cards with an average 21% APR.
“‘If I were to sell my engagement ring we could pay off our credit-card bills and get ahead on our bills and rent.’”
My husband said, “You know what’s the answer to our problems? Your ring! Maybe we should sell it.” He said it in a lighthearted manner, but I knew at the same time he wasn’t joking, and now it feels like a heavy burden to wear it, especially when we have so much uncertainty and an unpredictable monthly income. My travel concierge business has not been exactly lucrative in the last 12 months, and our cash flow does not exactly instill us with confidence.
Here’s our dilemma. We have talked about our financial issues at length, and if I were to sell my engagement ring, which is worth approximately $14,000, we could pay off our credit-card bills and get ahead on our bills and rent for the next six months. It would give us the breathing space we need to get back on our feet financially, and give us some time to figure out our next move. Right now we’re covering our rent, but we’re living paycheck to paycheck.
Should I sell my ring?
Good (or Bad) Wife
Dear Wife,
You have a big, shiny credit-card payment on your finger. I feel the weight of your dilemma.
There’s so much status and pressure attached to diamond rings. A lot of what we believe to be requirements for the value of engagement rings were created by jewelry and, in particular, diamond companies in the first half of the 20th century. The popularity of diamond engagement rings is traced back to the “A Diamond is Forever” marketing campaign by the DeBeers diamond company, which trademarked that sentiment. It was written by copywriter Frances Gerety in 1947.
Neither the diamond industry nor etiquette experts are shy about giving the public advice on how much to pay for a ring and when it’s OK to sell it. Here’s the Moneyist’s take on that: You don’t have to buy a diamond ring at all. There’s no law that says your relationship is more or less valuable because you have a diamond ring on your finger. Your ring is a piece of jewelry and you can sell it anytime you like, and for whatever reason you both choose.
The industry is also not shy about talking about how “tradition” dictates how much one should spend on a ring. Here’s the advice from one diamond company: “The amount you choose to spend on an engagement ring should approximate the amount of your monthly salary times two. By this measure, anyone who earns $2,000 a month should be looking at models in the $4,000 range. For someone earning $10,000 a month, a $20,000 ring would be about right.
“ ‘Your ring is a piece of jewelry and you can sell it anytime you like, and for whatever reason you both choose.’”
“While she knows you love her, a tiny ring with a nearly invisible diamond is sure to be a disappointment,” the advice goes on. “If she needs a magnifying glass to get the stone’s full impact, she may even start to wonder if your feelings run as deeply as you claim. The truth is that all women want engagement rings of which they can be proud. While she doesn’t want the ring to send you to the poorhouse, she doesn’t want her friends feeling sorry for her either.”
My advice: Don’t take that advice. It’s time to divorce ourselves from our need to have big fat diamonds that cost twice our monthly salaries — really? — to show that we have what it takes to assume our place in society. The whole notion that the diamond industry wants couples to believe that the size of the diamond equates to the depth of a husband’s love — and that it may lead a woman’s friends to pity her — is ridiculous, self-serving poppycock.
Speaking of divorce: engagement rings are not generally considered marital property. “Engagement rings are customarily purchased by one spouse and gifted to the other before getting married. Therefore, under New York’s rules governing the equitable distribution of marital property, an engagement ring does not qualify as marital property that is subject to apportionment proceedings in a divorce case,” according to the Law Office of Tzvi Y. Hagle.
“ ‘It may be that you can only get $6,000 for the ring, given that you paid retail price, and decide that it’s not worth giving up.’”
You can always buy another piece of jewelry. I don’t believe it’s healthy to put so much weight on one consumer item. If your husband had a sports car and could downsize to another vehicle and save the same amount of money, would he consider it? If selling your ring is what you need to do in order to put yourself on a firmer financial footing — and you can get close to what you paid for it on the open market without getting ripped off by a pawn shop (best avoided) — consider it.
Keep in mind that if you paid $200 a month on your credit-card bill, it would take you 100 months to pay it off, and you would end up paying $10,530 in interest. You can always keep the ring itself and replace the diamond. Or it may be that you can only get $6,000 for the ring, given that you paid retail price, and decide that it’s not worth giving up. But on principle it’s good to look at what you could get for the ring, and then make an informed decision together.
The diamond-ring conversation may be worth having, if only so you explore all your options, and reevaluate your relationship to your possessions, your financial goals and your priorities as a couple. Plus, his off-the-cuff comment and/or suggestion hangs over you like a cloud. You may discover that you need a plan of action to reduce spending, find alternative sources of income, and the diamond becomes the rock on which these plans are built.
You can email The Moneyist with any financial and ethical questions related to coronavirus at [email protected], and follow Quentin Fottrell on Twitter.
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More from Quentin Fottrell:
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‘How to travel for free’: I spent $500 hosting my friend for a week. Should she have paid for food and utilities?
‘He’s content living paycheck to paycheck’: My husband won’t work or get a driver’s license. Now things have gotten even worse.
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