Jane Bradley: Scots males sparkle at romance

AMOROUS Scots spend twice as much money on an engagement ring as their equivalents in the rest of the UK.

North of the Border, men – and some women – say they fork out the equivalent of one-and-a-half months’ salary on the traditional engagement token, compared with just 20 days salary elsewhere.

The report, by home insurance firm LV, also found that Scots are less likely to cut back on the costs of proposing due to the depressed economic climate and squeezed household spending.

Among those who are currently engaged and have paid for their partner’s engagement ring, 13 per cent of people in Britain say financial concerns constrained the amount of money they spent – while in Scotland, those who decide to propose are bucking the trend, with just 7 per cent cutting back on what they spent on a ring – nearly half the UK average.

It is not just men who are likely to have to pay out for an engagement ring. Thousands of women are expected to propose to their partners next Wednesday – 29 February – as is traditional during a leap year.

However, of those women surveyed who were given an engagement ring by their partners, less than half say they know exactly how much their ring is worth, with the average ring being valued by the wearer at £1,231.

However, the cost of diamonds has risen by 9 per cent on average over the past 12 months and by 44 per cent in the past five years, yet gold has risen by almost a third over the past year and by 511 per cent in the past decade.

This means that the real value of a ring bought in the past few years will have changed substantially from its original price and could be worth a great deal more.