Post # 1
Member
3249 posts
Sugar bee
I am in something of a quandary, bees!
My wedding is in a little less than a year and a half, and though we are doing it on a very small budget, I still have a LOT to save for it, as I’ve been a poor grad student for the last 2 years and will be in school and working part-time until a few months until the wedding.
We also reeeaally need a new mattress (as some of you may have seen from my post yesterday!). Our current one, while it is a fancy rubber latex mattress that was supposed to last for 20 years, has a very significant and back-pain-producing sag in the center that makes us roll towards each other and get squished up against each other all night. We both have back issues and I suspect the mattress is partially to blame, or at least is preventing our backs from getting better.
If my tax refund is the same as it was last year, I could spend most of it and buy a good quality mattress for us (my FI has been paying for other house things lately so me paying for the mattress myself would be fair). Or I could save it all and be a little less worried about wedding money!
So, what would you do? Get the mattress or save the whole refund for the wedding? 
Post # 3
Member
2612 posts
Sugar bee
- Wedding: May 2014 - Madison, WI
I would get the matress. A good night’s sleep is very important to me. If I was suffering pain and/or having issues sleeping because of my matress I would make it a priority to replace it.
Post # 4
Member
3555 posts
Sugar bee
Mattress hands down. You spend a third of your life on that piece of furniture and if you both are already in pain it’s only going to get worse as time goes by. You’ll both be happier and healthier with a good mattress which I imagine will help you handle the stress of wedding planning more easily.
Post # 5
Member
2691 posts
Sugar bee
Get the mattress. I deal with back pain issues too and a good mattress is critical for me. Check out Groupon and LivingSocial, though. In my area, there is always at least one deal going for Mattress Firm or another chain mattress store. We were able to save a ton of money by combining a Groupon during a big sale they were having.
Post # 6
Member
3249 posts
Sugar bee
@Ms_Purple:
@Eckle: 🙂 🙂 I should show your posts to my FI. The mattress we have is a massively expensive one that he bought before I came along (he was single for years, including when he moved into his/our house that he built). He is loath to replace the thing because it cost him so much. . . :/ BUT it is bad for our backs!
Post # 7
Member
361 posts
Helper bee
As a college girl on a budget who recently bought a mattress, I say go for the mattress!! You won’t regret it!
Post # 8
Hostess
11823 posts
Sugar Beekeeper
@Creiddylad: we bought a new bed 2 years ago instead of putting the money against debt/my tuition. Best decision I ever made. I still praise that bed, I love it it’s magic.
Post # 9
Member
559 posts
Busy bee
@Creiddylad: I’m actually in such a similar situation! I’ve been in full blown denial that we need a new mattress though :/
Get the mattress! I think I might shop around for one too!
Post # 10
Member
3266 posts
Sugar bee
We bought a new mattress a couple years and it didn’t break the bank. It was from Ikea! We were there just wandering around and ended up testing their beds. We fell in love with one! A couple months later we took the plunge and bought it. Best decicision ever. I looove my memory foam bed. Since it was so inexpensive (<$600) I’ve been expecting to see the dips where we sleep but nope! Still looks amazing.
Best part of all? I have a bulging disc in my lower back and it has brought so much relief sleeping on a nice mattress that I can function normally again!
Post # 11
Member
3249 posts
Sugar bee
@bleusteel: I will definitely check those out! We don’t have much in the way of mattress chains around here because we’re in a pretty rural area, but I guess if we could get a really good deal it would be worth driving to Burlington (and hour and a half away). I’ll remember that suggestion! 🙂
Post # 12
Member
3249 posts
Sugar bee
@LiliKitty: I wish there was an IKEA near here, but the closest one is somewhere in Massachusetts (probably 5 hours away). I was looking on their website yesterday (after you I think mentioned having a mattress from IKEA on my other thread) and they do seem to have very inexpensive mattresses.. . .
Post # 13
Member
3266 posts
Sugar bee
@Creiddylad: They do deliver. They hauled away our old mattress and we kept our old boxspring since Ikea mattresses don’t have boxsprings. You’d still have to actually test them out and see if you’d like them and that’s really, reaaally far.
Post # 14
Member
1090 posts
Bumble bee
@Creiddylad: This sounds sooo much like my FI. He bought this crazy expensive mattress about a year before we met. At first it was the comfiest thing ever but then it started to sag and I felt like I was clinging to the edge to not roll into FI at night.
First, check to see if the mattress has a warranty. Ours did but it wasn’t “broken enough” so we couldn’t use it. If it is supposed to last 20 years then it probably has a warranty and someone will come out and measure the sagginess and determine if you can get a new one. I think they let you choose up to a certain value so you could try a different type instead of getting the same exact one.
Second, I see you are in New England so you probably know Bob’s Discount Furniture? They have soooo many mattresses in their “basement” section. We just bought ours from there and we really love it. The prices are marked down like crazy and they have loads of different types.
Also, both FI and I were having bad back problems and they mostly went away as soon as we switched mattresses. It’s a really important thing to have a mattress that works for you.
Post # 15
Member
3249 posts
Sugar bee
@LiliKitty: It is. I think we’ll probably get one from Sears or a local mattress store. Sears is having a very good mattress sale right now, which is frustrating because I won’t have my tax refund for another couple months probably, and I don’t want to put it on my credit card!
@Kir32: I think I have heard of Bob’s Discount Furniture, but I’m not sure if there is one near us (we’re in northern Vermont).
The absurdly expensive sagging mattress did come with a warranty that if it sagged more than a certain amount, they’d replace it. BUT my FI seems to have lost the warranty papers and the receipt for it (we were talking about getting anew mattress a few months ago, so he looked and couldn’t find it). I asked him to call the store he got it from and ask for info on the warranty, but he hasn’t and without a reciept I wouldn’t think much could be done. It still might be worth a try– I’ll ask him to do that again.
Post # 16
Member
1427 posts
Bumble bee
- Wedding: June 2010 - parent's backyard
@Creiddylad: do you use a box spring or saggy platform? that might be the culprit. you could tell by putting the latex mattress on the floor and seeing if it still sags. if it turns out you only need a new platform, that will save you a lot of money.
also, if you want to save money, there are some stores that sell “almost new” mattresses – like when a customer tried a new mattress for a week and returned it. they get sold really cheap. I bought one and put a mattress pad on it so I didn’t have to be weirded out by the fact that it was owned by somebody else.
if you do spend a lot on a mattress, I recommend getting one that can be flipped over. (for example, you can’t flip most pillow top styles.) if you can flip your mattress, it will last many more years.
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