Pandora says laboratory-made diamonds are forever

I agree, but at the same time, we're much more intelligent than penguins, so it's a shame that we also signal commitment with a fancy rock. Something like a work of art or rare book would serve the same purpose but would have more personal meaning.

The spell is called herd mentality. People don't like to be losers, so women wear shiny stones and men drive cool cars. Both want to send the message "I'm not a loser". Appeal to science has no bearing on the herd opinion. Your gf was basically terrified that her friends would laugh at her lab grown diamond and her weak scientific arguments won't raise her ingroup status. Edit: I'd add a snarky observation that a diamond is essentially a notarized letter of "love" where the shop gets paid as the notary and your gf gets the proof of your deposit. The stone itself isn't worth much.

Years ago the natural diamond in my wife's wedding ring fell out somewhere, so she stopped wearing the ring. When our 25th anniversary was coming up I asked her if she wanted to get a new ring. Our 20-something year old daughters got wind of this and said under no circumstances could we get a natural diamond. I'd never paid much attention to the issue since I hadn't been in the market for a diamond in the 26 since years since I purchased one for the first ring (a ring that only cost $600 since I was a poor college student, no wonder the diamond eventually fell out).

I did some looking around and learned about Moissanite. The women on r/moissanite were especially enthused about it. From there I learned that you could design and purchase Moissanite jewelry directly from China. I had my wife look through the rings of one of the stores on Alibaba and choose one that she liked, except the color was wrong (she wanted rose gold instead of platinum). So I reached out to the company and asked about the possibility of getting it made in rose gold. I was assured it was no problem. I told them I wanted solid rose gold and not plated. They said the price would be higher, but no problem. I sent my wife's ring size and a few days later they sent back CAD mockups of what the ring would look like with measurements. I had them enlarge the bottom of the band and we came to an agreement on what cut/color/clarity/etc. all of the side moissanite stones would be. Then we started working on the main stone. We came to an agreement on size (2 Carat), color, clarity, style, etc. We could specify everything about the stone from the height of the crown to the width of the edge to the way the stone was cut to the bottom point - frankly we had to read up a lot of how stones are cut and what the different options are to know how to appropriately respond. About a week later they had finished cutting the stone and sent us videos of it under different light conditions so that we could approve it. Then they manufactured the ring and sent us videos of it to approve. After approval and final payment we received it in the mail about 3 days later.

Frankly my wife loves the ring. It really is gorgeous and everyone thinks the Moissanite is a real diamond.

My favorite part is that the entire thing only cost me $700. 10 out of 10 I'd definitely do it that way again.

Disclaimer: I'm not a tax advisor and this is not tax advice. It might not even be correct. Do your own research and consult an attorney about your specific situation. For entertainment purposes only and so on.

U.S. citizens must pay taxes on worldwide income, regardless of what country they live in. Citizens of almost all other countries are not required to do this (they pay income taxes to the country where they live and/or earn income). It's a remarkably raw deal for U.S. citizens abroad, considering that we don't get any services to go along with our tax obligations. You'd think we could at least pop into the consulate for one of those COVID vaccines that are now so plentiful stateside that they can hardly give 'em away, but no.

Now, if you're a U.S. citizen and you live abroad in a country with no income tax (e.g. Monaco) or low income tax (e.g. Bulgaria), and you earn more than the ~$100k limit of the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion (FEIE), then you're going to be paying U.S. tax, because you won't have paid enough foreign tax to deduct it all under the Foreign Tax Credit. Also all of your non-"earned" income is going to be subject to U.S. tax - dividends, capital gains, etc.

But let's say you live in Monaco (0%), Bulgaria (10% flat), Dubai (0%), Panama (25% top bracket), or the Cayman Islands (0%) and your spouse is not a U.S. citizen or permanent resident (not a "U.S. person" for IRS purposes). If your excess (> $100k) family income is credited to your spouse (or a company owned by your spouse), and that income is not generated in the USA (e.g. not from a U.S.-based business, rental properties in the U.S., U.S. stocks, or business trips to the U.S.), and you file with status "Married Filing Separately" on your U.S. tax return, then your spouse's income is not included on your tax return.

Say you do consulting out there on your little island in the Bahamas, and your foreign spouse sets up a consulting company and hires you as an employee. You get paid a salary by the company that is conveniently under the FEIE limit and thus pay no U.S. tax. Your spouse gets the dividends and pays no tax on them. So long as this isn't entirely a paper fiction arrangement wherein you do 100% of the work but your spouse gets basically all of the money, for U.S. tax purposes it ought to be kosher. (Again disclaimer: not a tax lawyer, this could be wildly incorrect, consult your own advisor about your specific situation)

Your family company's profits get invested into real estate (again in low-tax / no-tax jurisdictions) in your spouse's name. The passive income from that again flows to your spouse for tax purposes, and as long as you keep filing "Married Filing Separately", your spouse is invisible for U.S. tax purposes and no U.S. tax is due.

This is the only way that I know of, short of renouncing citizenship, for a high-earning U.S. citizen expat to avoid taxation of their worldwide income. You still have to file a bunch of paperwork, though. Also, due to a stupid quirk of IRS policy, because your spouse doesn't have a SSN/ITIN, you can't complete a 1040 in the e-file system and you have to file a paper return. Hope you FedEx'd it to the right address, because only a few IRS offices will accept courier deliveries.

You must also be careful about how you set things up for estate planning purposes. If you both live in the U.S. then there is in general no estate tax due when one spouse dies and bequeaths their assets to the other spouse. If you live in a different country, then it can get very complicated! Depending on who owns the assets, what country they're located in, who owned them before marriage, whether they were "gifted" to the other spouse over time or not, etc., the surviving spouse may owe substantial taxes in one country or the other.

I went to a wedding and the two friends tied a knot as per middle-age European tradition.

The knot was then packaged inside of a chest, as a reminder of the promise they made on their Wedding Day. And as far as I know, they still have that chest with them, and the Knot is still tied.