27 October 2011
This is the start of the 8th year, and 86th issue, I have written The Entrusted Steward. I have never written about purchasing a mattress in that time. Mattresses are related to health and finance, so in this issue of The Entrusted Steward I am going to cover the topic of buying a mattress.
As I begin to look for a mattress I learned that this industry is over 100 years old. For example, Sealy was started around 1881. I can tell you, without hesitation, that the mattress industry is not only a very old one (like life insurance) but a huge one. I don’t know of another household product that is as big as this industry. I believe the mattress industry may be even larger than the car industry, here in the US. Even though this is an enormous and old industry, picking out a mattress is far from easy.
My back has been increasingly bothering me over the past many months, mainly in 2011. I really try to keep my weight down by eating healthy foods and exercising so I do not have back issues, which is something that has run in my family for generations. But not only has my back been bothering me, my hip has been sore this year and so has my shoulder. So, one morning I got up out of bed and could not hardly walk, and Alix made a novelty comment, which at the time I do not think she knew what it would unleash, but she said that “it could be the mattress.”
Now, a little background on our mattress, Alix’s mother bought us a mattress, from Costco, 13 years ago when we first got married. It is a king-sized mattress. It has served us well, and it is something that I thought we would just have for the rest of our lives. Well, little did I know that consumer reports recommend that you replace your mattress every 5 to 7 years! And that sagging in a mattress is the number 1 cause of back pain. Our mattress was certainly sagging.
So, as with anything, when I am going to replace something and make a big budget purchase item, I go to Consumer Reports. Or I try to look at the top brands that are purchased by millionaires in one of the books written by Dr. Thomas Stanley. Now, first of all why do I look to see what millionaires purchase? Well, because they typically purchase high-value items; that are good quality items at a good price.
It took Consumer Reports five years to do the research on mattresses, and they released their ratings and rankings in May of 2010, and it was basically non-conclusive. There was no real advice. No real opinions on what you should buy. And it is because the mattress industry is so confusing. For me, the way that my mind works when I go and purchase something, I gather the data and go and purchase it and usually do not have that much of a difficulty doing it. Cars, vacuum cleaners, refrigerators, washing machines, lawnmowers, etc. – it is usually simple to go on Consumer Reports and look and get the ratings and go and buy it. Well, that is not the case with mattresses. You have to really stretch yourself to figure out what you are going to buy.
We went to some stores. We laid on a Tempur-Pedic bed, a Sleep Number bed, and we went and laid on an inner spring mattress, which is the kind that we had owned for the previous 13 years. I ended up buying a Tempur-Pedic. We had it brought to our house. It was a very expensive mattress and not something that I would typically spend that much money on. However, it did have a 20-year warranty, and my parents owned one, and my dad said that his was fantastic. And my neighbor down the road said his was fantastic. So, we got one sent to our house, and we slept on it for a couple of few weeks, and I felt hot and then I figured out that that was a common issue with the memory foam that Tempur-Pedic makes. So, I returned that bed, got a refund all but $200, which is what I had to pay for these two pillows that I now have. I then went online and began researching and looking and learning as much as I possibly could and as I continued to look, I found out that the number one complaint for memory foam is that it sleeps hot, so to speak.
One of the best websites that I found in doing my research was www.sleeplikethedead.com. Nobody really wants to give you advice on a mattress purchase out there…it is kind of weird. But here is my advice to you: Get a mattress with an extra firm supportive core and you can make the top layer as soft, or firm, as you want. How soft you make it will depend on what type of sleeper you are (side, back, stomach). There are many more details, about each type (water, air, inner spring, memory foam, latex), but that is the best general advice I can give you.
