“People buy shoes online even though you can’t try them on… a mattress is no different, right?” Faced with buying a new mattress two years ago, I uttered these words to Mrs. Frugalwoods and then embarked on a frugal slumber experiment. My goal was to see if my wife and I could buy a mattress online, save tons of money, and still get a great night’s sleep. Let’s start at the beginning. Mrs. Frugalwoods is what we would lovingly call an “active sleeper.” She is a tiny woman with powerful kicking legs. Must be all that yoga. We had a double bed for the first several years of our marriage and I have the scars to prove it! So when we moved back to the Northeast a few years ago, getting a bed large enough to provide Mrs. Frugalwoods with room to roam and myself to sleep without being pummeled was on the top of my list. And holy mother-of-pillowtop are king sized mattresses expensive! This low-end tempurpedic is $2,400! Our car isn’t worth $2,400! The Mrs. and I saw those prices and were not impressed.
It also quickly became apparent that mattresses are extremely profitable and sold in a manner similar to used cars. I do not need a salesperson to assist me, thank you very much. But we really needed a mattress. So we made a list of our snoozing requirements and asked the internet. anyway (gloves for hound teeth brushing, for example) so it was a natural place to start looking. Turns out, they have an entire mattress section. After reading through a bunch of the firm mattress reviews, we settled on the LUCID 8″ Memory Foam Mattress. It checked all the boxes and 2 years ago was only $279 for the king size. Plus, and this is the really crazy part, Prime Shipping! That’s right, Amazon shipped a king sized mattress to our door in a mere 2 days from ordering it, FOR FREE. When it arrived, we warily eyeballed the heavy, awkward, long tube that the mattresses was vacuum packed into. The box was plastered with warnings to put the box in the room where you want the mattress before opening it and releasing the tightly coiled foam.
We carefully put the box in the bedroom and then slit the straining plastic holding back the surging foam mattress. As dramatic as it sounds (and as we had imagined it), in reality the foam just slowly unrolled itself and started gaining the shape of a mattress. Did it smell a little “new car-ish” (for lack of a better term)? Yes, but it wasn’t overwhelming. The box suggested leaving the windows open for a few hours while the foam attained its shape. We opened the box when we got home from work and by the time we were ready to go to bed, the smell was no longer noticeable. So how does a $279 mattress from the internet feel? I actually remember chuckling as I lay down for the first time. We picked the 8″ version specifically because it was the firmest (they also make 10″ and 12″ which are softer) and wow does it deliver. Firm but comfy and extremely supportive of our backs. Two years later, internet mattress is still firm and supportive! Since this mattress has foam layered in a specific order, you can’t flip it but you can rotate it.
We do that every 6 months to try and keep the wear level the same. So far I haven’t noticed any significant settling of the foam. One of the things I was most concerned about was how it would feel during the summer. I’d heard from some people that memory foam can hold the heat next to your body. In practice we haven’t noticed any additional heat. In short, it’s been a great mattress and we expect to get many more years of good sleep on it! Over the past two years, I’ve evangelized buying a mattress from Amazon to coworkers and friends, several of whom have bought the same or similar mattresses. So far no complaints! Take a look at the Amazon mattress section, in particular the Lucid foam mattress, and keep it in mind the next time you’re in the market for a bed. Have you purchased a mattress online? Ever thought about it? Think it’s the weirdest thing ever? Let me have it! Note: I bought the mattress with my own money. No one paid me to do this review, I just think it’s a pretty awesome way to save money. T
he links to the mattress are affiliate links, which means if you also score a deal on a great mattress, Amazon will pay the Frugalwoods Family a small percentage of the sale. Frugal Hound thanks you in advance! Never Miss A Story Sign up to get new Frugalwoods stories in your email inbox.The Web address you entered is not a functioning page on our site. Go to Amazon.in's Home Page Buyers Guide to MattressesHigh-quality topper, deeply filled with loose fluffy cluster fibre adding extra comfort and support to your mattress. This topper is 3cm deep and has a 100% cotton cover. Duck Feather Mattress Topper Sleep In Comfort Mattress Topper Luxury Memory Foam Mattress Topper Memory Foam Mattress TopperIn building Boll & Branch, the Tannens have tried to create a supply chain that improves the livelihoods of farmers and factory workers in India. They also have followed the lead of recent consumer goods companies like the eyeglasses maker Warby Parker and the mattress maker Casper by going all in on e-commerce.
Mr. Tannen, 38, previously founded a video game company and worked in the marketing departments of Wrigley and Kraft. Ms. Tannen, 39, was a third-grade teacher who had become a full-time mother. But once they began thinking about where their sheets came from, the problem nagged at them, provoking radical career changes.In 2013, they decided to take a gamble and use the profits Mr. Tannen had made from the sale of his video game company to start Boll & Branch. Their goal was to make high-end sheets while using good farming and labor practices. Doing so would put them on the moral high ground. Just as important, it would make Boll & Branch stand out in a crowded marketplace. (Other companies, including Parachute, also sell bedding directly to consumers, and some boast that they follow socially responsible practices.)The Tannens began buying thousands of dollars’ worth of sheets to examine different weaves, and spent their spare time researching the cotton industry. The more they learned, the less they liked what they found.
In India, one of the largest cotton and garment producers, many farmers are dependent on genetically modified crops. Those seeds and the necessary pesticides may increase yields, but they also cost the farmers money, further eroding their slim profits.It does not get much better further along the supply chain. According to a recent report by the Center for Research on Multinational Corporations, a Dutch nonprofit organization, and the India Committee of the Netherlands, forced labor, child labor and poor working conditions are common in Indian garment factories. If the Tannens were going to create a high-minded bedding company, they would have to do better than the status quo. The first step was to find a reliable source of organic cotton. Besides being more expensive for farmers, conventional cotton farming methods — particularly the use of pesticides — may be taking a toll on the health of field workers. After some searching, the Tannens found Chetna Organic, a nonprofit organization that works with cotton farmers in central and southern India.
The Chetna members grow their crops without genetically modified seeds or pesticides, and they use significantly less water than conventional farmers. Chetna is certified by Fair Trade USA, the Global Organic Textile Standard and Fairtrade International, and it maintains stringent internal controls. The Tannens had already settled on using organic cotton when a tragedy prompted them to raise their sights still higher. In April 2013, the Rana Plaza garment factory in Bangladesh collapsed, killing more than 1,100 people. That disaster, and others in recent years, prompted many big retailers to pay closer attention to conditions in garment factories. The Tannens hopped on that bandwagon, resolving to carefully scrutinize their factories, too. They opted for Rajlakshmi Cotton Mills, an organic and Fair Trade certified textile factory in Kolkata, India, with which Chetna has a partnership. The approach they are taking has its costs. Mr. Tannen estimates that using organic cotton and Fair Trade labor doubles those expenses, and so far the demand for organic sheets is not great in the United States.
But they have resolved to press on.Nicole Bassett, former director of sustainability at Prana and former manager of social responsibility at another apparel company, Patagonia, said Boll & Branch had a leg up on many other retailers. “People are creating brands all the time these days,” she said. “But they asked if there was a better way to do this. At Prana, we were taking years to convert these supply chains. They got to start from the beginning.”In May 2013, the Tannens placed their first order, for 1,500 sets of ivory and white sheets. The ivory sheets arrived with a green hue. But after eliminating such kinks, Boll & Branch sold its first sheets in January 2014, and it has been growing fast since. Sales were about $1.7 million that year and jumped to $13.5 million last year, the Tannens said. This year, they predicted, sales should roughly triple.For Chetna, Boll & Branch was a godsend. Previously, demand for organic cotton was spotty at best. “Cotton is a commodity at the end of the day,” said Arun Chandra Ambatipudi, one of the founders of Chetna.
“If you don’t show access to markets, interest will wane.”But now, Boll & Branch is buying more than half of the organic cotton Chetna’s 15,000 farmers produce, about 1,200 metric tons this year. And because Boll & Branch will need the cotton to keep coming, it has begun giving Chetna farmers cash advances, injecting a welcome degree of financial stability into an often volatile occupation. Though it has accepted higher costs for materials and labor, the company has found ways to increase margins. Instead of selling at wholesale prices to retailers, Boll & Branch primarily advertises online and sells directly through its own website.On its own, Boll & Branch will not solve the plight of Indian farmers. Compared with the sales of the big wholesalers of sheets, the company’s sales remain a rounding error. Even so, Mr. Tannen contends it is only a matter of time before many more consumers start expecting the cotton in their sheets, towels and even clothes to be organic and ethically sourced.