I saw the cutest little gold earrings the other day on QVC, and I came this close to buying them for myself. I may still get them, but I reminded myself that I had a few bills to get past before I would allow myself to spend money on something I could live without (at least for a few weeks) first.

So, how many of us feel comfortable buying fine jewelry for ourselves? Other types of jewelry, such as beaded and/or bridge I can make, so I'm always "giving" myself some kind of new jewelry piece, but when it comes to jewelry I'd considered fine jewelry, that's another story.

The Jewelry Consumer Opinion Council wondered something similar when they set out to complete a recent consumer pole on self-purchasing of fine jewelry:

April 2007: Fine Jewelry Self-Purchasing Report

The JCOC set out to explore consumer willingness to buy fine jewelry for themselves. This report not only reveals what style of fine jewelry JCOC panel members are interested in, but their motivation, purchasing habits and much more!

This report includes the following sections:

- Introduction & Methodology
- Executive summary
- Past Fine Jewelry Self-Purchase Behavior
- Planned Fine Jewelry Self-Purchase Behavior
- Demographics
- Comparative Insights
- Strategic Recommendations
- About the JCOC

You can download a free copy of the whole report here.

The report is 20 pages long, so I'm still making my way through it, but it's pretty interesting. It looks like a good number of jewelry lovers do shop for themselves, so I guess I need to get over it. What about you? Do you buy jewelry for yourself, or do you wait and give a lot of hints in hopes that someone will buy it for you?