Weddings are a lot of fun. And since I’m right around the age where a lot of my friends are getting married (including myself), I’ve been going to a lot lately and been having a pretty great time. But I also know just how much work and how much money goes into each one. And as a self-proclaimed cheap SOB, weddings and I don’t get along particularly well in the finance department. Amongst all that spending though, I was able to score a huge win during my own wedding planning and no one seemed to be any wiser
My Wedding Ring
For me, the thing I was most worried about when picking out a wedding band was finding something that I liked and looked nice. I could care less if it was made out of white gold or platinum or tungsten or whatever. Just because some guy in a suit tells me that a metal is supposedly ‘rare’ doesn’t justify me spending an exorbitant amount.
I will never understand why people pay so much for brand names when the actual product is nearly the same. I have a fake Lacoste shirt that my wife got for me from the Phillipines for $4. Whenever I wear it, I almost always get compliments and people tell me how nice it is. I’m quick to point out though that it’s fake and there’s no way I’d ever be dumb enough to pay $80 for a shirt that costs less than $4 to make. I apply the same theory to wedding bands.
My $20 Wedding Band
It only took me a couple trips to the jewelry store to get an idea of the type of ring I wanted. I couldn’t tell the difference between the rare metals (gold, silver, platinum) and the non-rare metals (tungsten, titanium, etc) so it obviously made sense to go with the cheaper ones. The ring I ended up liking the most was about $300 in the store but I had a hunch I could find it cheaper online.
Within a few minutes of searching, I was able to find a nearly identical ring (same material, style, etc) for $20 (the price has actually gone down to $9 since I purchased it!). The ring arrived within a couple days, it was high quality, looked great and it only cost $20! Since then, I’ve received numerous compliments and also talked to numerous friends who have spent 10-20x more on similar non-rare metal rings. What were they thinking?
What Will Other People Think?
My wife was pretty cool about letting me pick out my own band but I have a friend going through the process right now and the bride’s parents don’t want him to ‘cheap out’ on a wedding band. I actually suggested that he just buy it off Amazon for $9 and tell everyone it cost $300.
One of the reasons why I think it’s a gigantic waste of money to buy material products like high-end jewelry and clothing is because most of the inherent value is associated with the brand name or style instead of the actual product. If tungsten was all of a sudden a rare metal and the cost of my ring skyrocketed to $1,000 does that mean my ring is now worth $1,000? No way!
Just because someone is dumb enough to pay $1,000 for a $9 ring doesn’t mean it’s worth $1,000. I’d rather save my money to pay for something that actually matters. And yes I did buy my wife a nice diamond engagement ring but we’ll talk about that one in a future article.
Readers, what do you think about my $20 wedding band? Do you think it’s dumb to pay for a name brand or pay extra for a metal that some jeweler tells you is rare?
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You are awesome — LOVED this post!! We eloped in Vegas (our entire wedding was $300 lol) and we bought rings that we could afford. We spent $500 for both of our wedding bands (mine was $300, husbands was $200) and guess what? My husband lost his about a year after our wedding. No big deal, though – it’s not like it was a few thousand dollar purchase. I went out and bought him a new one from JC Penney for $50! He loves it, it fits great and this way if he loses it again it really is no big deal. It’s just a symbol – a cheap or expensive ring says nothing about the state of the marriage. Thanks for the great read!!
Haha thanks, did you guys do a cool Elvis wedding or anything like that? 🙂
Yea personally I love to spend money but only when the quality is there or it makes sense. A ring has no real value to me and a $1,000 ring isn’t going to make me 50 times happier. Once he loses this one, you should go for one of the Amazon rings for $20 haha.
We totally should go for the Amazon rings, haha! We got married at The Little White Wedding Chapel which is where Elvis, Britney Spears, etc. got married. Honestly, it was awesome. We spent the whole day together, got married, went out to an amazing dinner then had a blast drinking and gambling. Super easy, lots of fun and NO PLANNING!!!!
Perfect. I agree 100% with you about the ring. Nobody knows the difference anyway.
And Sarah—- I could marry a girl like her.
Seems like everyone I meet just wants to show off on Facebook ( putting up a oic of their new Lexus or sports car) and keep up with (or beat out) the Joneses !
We- ( those of us who are money savvy) will be much better off down the road when we have seven (7) figure net worth numbers and can retire before we drop dead..
There are going to be a lot of sad people who reach age 65-70 and realize that they cannot survive on the $700/ month social security provides (if it even still exists).
Haha hopefully you’ll find your Sarah some day soon. That is generally the problem, finding a woman who thinks like this too 🙂
As for keeping up with the Joneses, yep that’s how it is these days. It’s hard to look beyond the immediate instant gratification of a new car or trip or whatever and see the big picture down the road. But things might swing faster than you expect the smarter and the harder you work now.
Exactly. But I am not really worried about myself. I am more excited about the future than worried. I have a high savings rate and a moustachean attitude. Live well, save well, prosper.
Compound interest is my best friend and adviser. My girlfriend and I sit around and run the numbers for fun. I am pushing for 40 ! I know– weird, right.
Its just that I want to be the first guy on my block to reach $1M. A guy has to have goals, right?
NOT spending ” 3 months salary” on a diamond ring rates pretty high on my list of BS marketing.
The only thing I’m really worried about is being financially independent when I’m 40 and having no one to hang out with haha.
LOVE THIS! We spent around $75 on Wes’s “real” wedding ring, but he wears a $7 rubber ring as his daily ring. It’s rubber because he’s a car guy and he doesn’t want to scratch anything important haha. It’s made specifically for car guys and he loves it a lot.
Nice, that’s a good idea. I just type all day so my ring is fine for that, it does amaze me to see people working out and playing sports with their ring on though.
I just got engaged, but even before that, we were kidding around and looking at cheap rings on Etsy. I completely agree with you that there’s no sense in spending so much on a wedding band. The $20 one on Amazon looks just fine! I’ll have to show it to my fiance. =) He has no clue what he wants (neither do I) other than wanting it to be inexpensive. Thankfully, my grandma gave us her engagement ring so we only have to spend money to get it re-sized!
Nothing better than Grandma’s ring. Super special and priced right.
Best of luck with it!
This actually wasn’t the exact one I got because I think it sold out but it is very similar. You can also check Tanga, they have some great rings for less than $20 too. The craziest part is that these same exact rings sell in jewelry stores for $2-300!
I did the same thing…found a band that matched the style I wanted…Picked it out, found out it was about $30, so I bought two…Now I have one for when I lose the first one!
Nice, I only bought one but I may get a slightly different style just to mix things up if I ever lose mine.
I think your $20 wedding band sounds like a smart buy. When my wife and I got married 8 years ago, we bought our bands online and found exactly what we wanted while saving money. However we both wanted yellow gold (which wasn’t as expensive then), so we didn’t quite get a $20 deal, but it was still very reasonable. The important thing isn’t how much the rings cost, but the quality of the marriage and the life together. Interestingly enough, the study in this article appears to suggest something similar: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/03/expensive-weddings-study_n_5929056.html.
Wow Gary you were way ahead of the times buying your bands online, congrats! Awesome survey although I definitely did spend a bit on my wife’s ring haha.
Awesome post! I too was thinking about going with either tungsten or titanium when I tie the knot because it looks 95% like white gold and I can pocket the difference in cost.