Relative of retired jewelry store owner here: The idea of Jewelry having any type of considerable value has got to be the biggest snow job scam ever played on the middle class throughout all history. Jewelry has absolutely no utility value at all except to impress people who are easily fooled. All gemstones of any known utility can be created cheaply and flawlessly in a laboratory. If you are considering 1-5k on a wedding ring and you have less than $5 million in the bank, you might as well start opening those Nigerian prince emails and pass some donations that way too because the result is the same and the Nigerian scammers probably need it more than the jewelry store owners. If your potential significant other is angry at you for not buying an expensive wedding ring, run away. They have some core judgement issues or they place 0 value on the effort it takes you to make the money needed to buy that ring.
> they place 0 value on the effort it takes you to make the money needed to buy that ring.
Very well said. I grew up in a middle-middle class family in India, and my Mom would not have let my Dad buy her any jewellery with his hard earned money.
On the other hand my father let my Mom buy a few grams of gold every few months. It was a good decision in hindsight considering how much it grew over the past few decades. My Mom's gold came to rescue when my family was in financial distress.
I don’t know what the logistics are of wherever and whenever you grew up, but I would expect a slew of better diversification options for anyone in the developed world in the form of low cost index etfs.
Gold’s performance has been quite subpar for the past few decades.
There is some amount of value in the custom made stuff (as in your own design/idea). It is hard and skilled work to craft metal so fine. But otherwise agreed. The culture of absurd spending for marriage needs to end as well. That money could go towards a house which will provide a lot more happiness in your life.
