I keep hearing people say 3 months salary la, 6k la, 10k la. Those to me seems to be for rich ppl.
I would like to hear more from normal people who doesn't get $$ from family and how much did you spend on your engagement ring?
1k? 2k? 3k?

too much

many many years back. rm1k for 2 gold rings.

Why do you need to know how much other spent? Just spent what you think you can afford. If your bride cannot accept then probably it is better to separate and move on. After all, life gonna be a lot harder after marriage.

GIA 3EX 0.3ct natural diamond (colourless, VS quality, no fluorescence) + 18k ring setting you can get it between 4k-5k. You can probably get it below 4k if you manage to get the ring setting cheap.

However, these days, lab-grown diamonds are gaining popularity. IGI 0.3ct Ideal EX EX (colourless, VS quality, no fluorescence) can be less than RM 1000 for loose stone alone. You can find such stones from Ritani (online jeweler based in the US) website. The website is not that user friendly and you have to scan through a lot of diamonds before ultimately picking the right one for you. However, the time spent will convert to some decent money saving. You will notice the price gap between each 0.1ct jump will not be that significant compared to natural diamonds, so you may want to scale accordingly to your prefer carat weight.

Natural and Lab-Grown diamonds do not have difference in terms of chemical compound, they look identical because they are real diamonds. The only difference is one grow in a lab, one is grow in mother earth.

Overall, the less branding/marketing you get, the cheaper the price goes. The less service you get, the cheaper the price goes.

Lastly, you don't really need an engagement ring to get married. The lawfully signed paper is more important. Try to set your priorities together with your significant other. I know a guy that bought a dummy ring just for marriage and then dispose of it after that.

Find a design that suits your GF and represents your love. Not the money