Daily Archives: February 17, 2015

How I Stopped Worrying and Bought a Mattress Online

Inundated with questions from friends, I am going to chronicle my decision to purchase a mattress from Casper here.

Flashback to two months ago.

Her: “Your mattress is terrible.”
Me: “Well it is ten years old.”

This is where Past Me promptly forgets about that conversation until:

Flashback to one week ago.

Me: “Hrm. DCIst has an adverticle about a company that delivers mattresses, let me read that and then make a decision.”

So yes, there was an advertisement involved, but then again, it was space well purchased because I’m probably their exact demographic. I live in the District, I’m carless, I needed a new mattress and I wanted it to be as painless as possible.

Honestly, I waited two months for several reasons.

…purchasing a mattress is a pain in the ass.

As a person without a car, purchasing a mattress is a pain in the ass. I’d have to rent a car or ask a friend for help, who then has to empty their car to fit a mattress. That or pay for delivery fees.

Also mattress shopping is confusing. Firm or soft? Memory foam or latex? Spring? A mysterious “number” that really only indicates how much I am willing to spend on a mattress?

I went out and laid down on a few mattresses in a couple of showrooms. It felt like a waste of time to me because I have difficulty making these large dollar amount decisions based on the 45 seconds I spent on a mattress. Research really didn’t help.

Then the ad on DCIst showed up and then I started to check out what the deal was. $750 for a memory foam core mattress with a layer of latex foam on top. The frustrating research I did earlier actually helped here because by all accounts, that was a good price for a full size mattress.
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