The last time I bought a mattress for myself was about 11 years ago. I bought a fairly new full-sized one off a coworker. Four moves and a decade later, we’ve decided it’s time to replace it with an adult (and sometimes an extra toddler)-sized bed. When we started looking, I was shocked at the prices. $3000 for a mattress? What the heck are these things made of? Knowing very little, we went shopping for a mattress and other things on a Saturday morning. The first place, we stopped, Sleepy’s, seemed nice enough. We laid on a few and honed in on the one that we both felt most comfortable in. Meanwhile, Audrey discovered the fun of letting herself fall backwards onto mattresses and did it all over the store. She was giggling and the whole store couldn’t help but look and smile at her. Unfortunately, we soon stopped smiling. When we found something we liked, the seemingly helpful salesman started to get more aggressive. He asked how much we were looking at paying and I made up a number on the spot, something way below the listed price on the bed.
The said he would “talk with his manager” and see if he could get us that price. Then he started asking us if we could commit and have it delivered tomorrow. Anne had walked outside to give Audrey a break by that point, so I said I had to go out and talk with her about it. We talked about it for a bit, then decided we didn’t like the high-pressure sales pitch, so we got ready to leave. I had the car started up when the salesman came out and approached the car window. He then said that he had “talked to his manager” and he could give us the price we wanted AND a free “platinum package”. I said we would talk about it and let him know. We again decided this was sketchy, but to make good on my promise, I went in and gave him my phone number and left. Later that day we went to Jordan’s Furniture, generally known to be a reputable place with reasonable places. The salespeople there were nice and NOT high-pressure. Prices were generally lower, but strangely, we couldn’t find the mattress we found at Sleepy’s.
They had Sertas, but not the one we liked. Being indecisive, we left with a couple new names of ones we liked. Later, we went to Mattress Discounters. The woman there was not pushy and told us about the BBB complaints that Sleepy’s (a 700-store chain) had gotten. We decided to think some more and head home. At home, I did some research online and I found something strange – I couldn’t find much of anything on the mattresses we saw that we liked. I found some mattresses, many of the same brand, but not the same models. I later came to find out that this was completely intentional. The mattress industry is one big scam. There is no way to make an objective decision on a mattress using actual facts. Here’s a few things that the mattress industry does to get you: 1. They mark up their prices 100% to 200%!! No wonder the first guy was able to get his “manager” to give me such a steep discount. They were probably still going to make hundreds of dollars of profits on it.
2. They give the same mattresses different names in different stores or they set up exclusivity agreements by mattress line in certain stores. This makes it impossible to comparison shop because… 3. They make it really had to get actual facts about the mattresses. Stuff like coil counts, materials, overall construction are shrouded in secrecy. But that doesn’t really matter because… 4. There’s no objective measure of mattress quality. Consumer Reports won’t rate them because they can’t get the data and there’s no testing that actually says higher coil counts are better or the number of wires in the coils makes a difference in any way. You’re left to deciding how much you believe the marketing. Is a pillow top made of alpaca hair any better than one made of cotton? Your guess is as good as mine. 5. There’s very little online reviews of mattresses, probably because the model names are so fractured. The ones I did find looked more like content-free sites designed to attract referral credits.
With some more research, I found out that it was somewhat possible to compare mattresses models from different places. It turns out that they really only make one hardness variation in each line. So you can assume that a Plush Firm mattress in the “Classic” line, is the same as another Plush Firm in the Classic line, even if they have different names. was very helpful in figuring this out. We were able to understand which mattresses we saw and how they related to each other. For example, the mattress we liked at Jordan’s was a product line better than the one we saw at Mattress Discounters, even though they came out to the same price! Clearly Jordan’s had the better deal, but US-Mattress had an even better deal. So I did something I never thought I could do, buy a mattress over the internet. I’m pretty sure it’s the same one we saw in the store and the free delivery and frame were a good deal. I’m sure that even if I’m getting it at half the price I saw it listed at elsewhere, they’re still making a decent profit on it.
Anne and I agree that buying a mattress is worse than buying a car. While both have sketchy salespeople, when you buy a car, you can compare them on MPG, size, features, etc. Multiple dealers have the same models so you can compare prices and make an informed decision based on their invoice prices. There’s none of that when buying a mattress. Our mattress should arrive in a few weeks. Hopefully we’ll just find it comfortable enough to have to avoid going through buying a mattress again for at least another 11 years. UPDATE: The mattress arrived quickly and in good condition. We’ve been sleeping on it for several nights and while it feels comfy, I’ve had some upper back soreness which seems to be related to the new mattress. Hopefully it will go away. Otherwise, we’ll have to find another one and do a $100 exchange I guess.Memory foam mattress topper reviews including Tempurpedic, Serta and more. Buy your best memory foam topper bed pads for cheaper than you ever dreamed.
Reviews are useless, unless you know what you need. You want to save on memory foam bed pad deals that are both cheap and comfortable. And that's exactly what you'll do here. When we bought our first topper, we had just one criterion. It had to have a low price. We didn't look at any memory foam mattress topper reviews. And it wouldn't have done us much good if we did because we didn't really know what we wanted. Fortunately we got lucky. That cheap memory foam topper has served us well for many years and shows no signs of deterioration. If you don't want to just trust to luck, remember these two things about mattress pads. First, a topper manufactured with higher density foam will last much longer. And secondly, high density foam is more expensive. So you can have cheap or durable, but usually not both. If you want the topper to last, you're better off with higher density foam with a minimum density of 3.5 or 4.0 pound foam. The short reason for this is that you've got to have more material in the pad so that the open cells are close enough to support your weight evenly.
More stuff equals greater density, more support and unfortunately more materials and transportation costs. People who are taller or larger may be happier with a pad that's made with higher density foam. Greater density usually also equals a harder initial feel. So people who are more interested in softening a too hard mattress may be perfectly happy with cheaper toppers that have densities well below 3.5 pounds. So you have to make up your mind. Do you want something cheap that will get you by for 3-5 years? Or are you going to pay more for a higher density and a topper that will work with your mattress for a decade or more? Another thing to consider is that although these pads are naturally hypo-allergenic your old bed underneath them is not. Consider investing in an allergen protective cover. Here's memory foam mattress topper reviews for cheap memory foam pads that are highly recommended by buyers. Remember: these memory foam mattress topper reviews won't help you if you don't let your foam memory pad expand and air out for at least 24 hours after removing from the packaging.
This ensures that the visco foam cells expand to their maximum volume before you put any weight on them. It lengthens the life of your pad and is long enough that most lingering gases used in the foaming process will dissipate. Tempur-Pedic is the Ferrari of memory foam (except its Swedish instead of Italian). Everyone wants one, but only a comparative few shell out the big bucks to buy one. They are considerably more expensive than the discount memory foam toppers. For instance, a queen Tempurpedic 3 inch thick overlay is listed on the official Tempur-Pedic website at more 4 times the amount of a similar sized online model. Then there's the 'Campus Topper'. Its a 2 inch thick twin long size that comes with its own duffle bag carrying case. Its available at retails stores or on the Tempurpedic site for 3 times what you'd pay for some of the cheaper memory foam mattress toppers listed below. 2.0 Inch Visco2 Ventilated Mattress Topper by Sleep Studio Rated 4.5 out of 5 This very popular memory foam bed topper has a ton of enthusiastic reviews.
Its great for people who have a too hard mattress that needs a bit of cushioning. Good for people of average build and weight. The one to buy if you're on a ramen noodle budget. More at Memory Foam Mattress Pad Review for 2 Inch Visco2Ratings, Features and Buyer Feedback Sleep Studio 3-inch Visco2 Bed Pad With Pillows Rated 4.0 out of 5 If you're looking for a pad to soften your bed rather than provide support, the Sleep Studio 3-inch Visco2 is your topper. Buyers of this foam bed pad either...More at Memory Foam Mattress Pad Review - Sleep Studio Top - 3 Inch With PillowsRatings, Features and Buyer Feedback Serta 4-Inch Memory Foam Topper Rated 4.2 out of 5 Will buying this memory foam cover save a mattress that's too hard? This topper has a unique design which is extremely comfortable. However it is not constructed of four inches of memory foam. The top 2 inch soft layer is...More at Memory Foam Mattress Pad Review - Serta 4-Inch Memory Foam PadRatings, Features and Buyer Feedback