Why an engagement ring doesn't have to cost two months' salary.

You've surely heard the rule before: an engagement ring should cost two months' salary. Some say three, elsewhere sometimes just one. Sounds like an old custom, like something that always held true. It doesn't.

This rule is advertising. It comes from a campaign by the diamond corporation De Beers, which from the 1930s onwards wanted to boost sales. First it was one month's salary, then two; in Japan it became three. No tradition, no law, but a sales trick that worked astonishingly well.

The problem with it isn't the number, it's the pressure. It turns a gesture of love into an arithmetic problem and gives you the feeling that spending too little means loving too little. That's nonsense, and it only benefits the person selling the stone.

We believe the opposite. A good budget is the one you feel comfortable with, without thinking about it in the months that follow. That can be CHF 2'000 or CHF 10'000. What counts isn't the amount, but that the ring suits your story and your life.

The person who accepts your proposal isn't asking about your bank balance. They're saying yes to you. Put your money where it means something: a cleanly cut stone, a setting that lasts, a conversation in which you understand what you're buying. Keep the rest.

How much a ring really costs and where your money has the most effect, we're happy to go through with you – honestly, with no obligation, over an espresso.