How do you finance your carseat purchases? - Page 3

[Ironica]

Well, as another poster mentioned... we could buy three Marathons a WEEK for what we pay our nanny. :-/ Also, our mortgage payment (which is 30% of our net monthly income) could buy us 10 Regents. Every month. We're solidly middle-class for where we live, too... we only own one car, don't have cable... so we have money for other things we value.

But, that being said, we haven't really *splurged* much on carseats. Our first one (a Marathon) we registered for, and a friend of the family gave it to us for the shower. (He's a personal injury attorney... how appropriate.) My mother (who married a millionaire several years ago) bought another Marathon for her car, and replaced it out-of-pocket after an accident where the other guy had no insurance and she had no uninsured driver coverage.

When DS2 arrived, we had a SnugRide borrowed from a trusted friend. Then we agonized over the most logical next step: do we buy a Boulevard for the baby, and keep DS1 in the Marathon until he outgrows it... or buy a combo seat for DS1, and hand down the Marathon? We opted for the second choice, and (for the first time) bought a carseat: a Frontier, at FULL RETAIL. Ouch. But, in four years of parenting, we'd spent a total of $280 on carseats... not bad. $70 a year, and this seat can be handed down to DS2 when he's forward-facing.

Next, to put both boys in my mom's car, I spotted a link for a Safeguard on sale right on this very board. Again, though, *she* bought it, not us (and she's definitely got the money). Still, it was a $400 car seat for $250.

Finally, we decided it would make sense to get seats for the nanny's car. We kept the bucket for DS2 for a while, and got a Nautilus for DS1, on sale on Amazon.com for $144. Then we hit an AMAZING deal on a TrueFit on Amazon for $123, and finally returned the bucket to our friend (who's expecting twins right now, so she'll need it and then some!).

So, we've spent $547 on car seats, over time. We spend more than that on groceries in three weeks, and that doesn't even pay one month of DS1's preschool, or one week of the nanny for the boys. It *is* more than I take home after paying for the nanny and school, but our family handles it easily.

But, that's us. However, if our financial situation were different? Well, we wouldn't have a nanny, so we wouldn't have an entire extra set of seats... and probably would have bought a Nautilus on sale instead of a Frontier. And, truly, if we couldn't afford *that*, then as far as I'm concerned, we couldn't afford to drive the kids around. We'd use the bus.

[Ks Mama]

Originally Posted by Llyra

I just think it's a conversation worth having, considering why ALL available carseats aren't made as safe as possible, so that ALL kids have an equal chance at living to grow up.

Same reason all cars aren't made equally safe. Or all food isn't equally nutritious. Free market economy. We don't live in a controlled market, and I wouldn't want to have the govt. controlling pricing, or availability or products.

[Llyra]

Originally Posted by Ks Mama

Same reason all cars aren't made equally safe. Or all food isn't equally nutritious. Free market economy. We don't live in a controlled market, and I wouldn't want to have the govt. controlling pricing, or availability or products.

Do you think you'd feel differently, if it were you who couldn't afford a safe car, or nutritious food?

I just think that it's important to keep in mind that what seems "necessary" to a lot of you, is WAY WAY out of reach for many, many families. It's easy to get caught up in thoughts like I can't believe anybody would put their kid in such an unsafe seat, and similar thoughts, and forget that they might WANT something safer, might know very well that something safer is available, and be entirely unable to access it.

[Drummer's Wife]

Originally Posted by soxthecatrules

I can definitely see how my question was perplexing and making you scratch your head!! Once again, its a matter if you do things correctly in the first place (which we did not) and not have to back track then you could be money ahead and/or plan for big ticket items.

Speaking of cloth diapers....that was another mistake I made...not using them. Now we're at a point where I'm not 100% sure if its worth the investment at this point. DD is 7 months old now. Don't know much about the subject. Need to start reading some of the CD posts!

Well, we didn't exactly do it right, either. My DD's 2nd car seat (before she even turned a year old) was an over the head shield evenflo. And she's had 4 other car seats since then, and now at almost 8 yo rides in a backless booster. Like I said before, we have managed somehow to buy more than a dozen seats thru the years, and are still not done. I'm hoping that if we go for a True Fit, it may be close to the last car seat we buy.... We were low income for many years once we started having babies, I can think of at least two of our car seats that my mom bought, for gifts or just to help us out.

As for cloth diapering? It is worth it, for sure. I didn't start until my 2nd baby was 16 months old and have saved a ton of money over the past 5 yrs. Even if we hadn't had #3 and #4 it would have been worth the investment as the resale value is so high. Plus, I bought a lot used and then sold them for the same as I paid, so I often cloth diapered for free. Definitely check out the diapering forum, lots of good ideas and it doesn't have to be an insane start up cost. Heck, when we started we didn't have extra money and I bought one diaper a week and built up my stash slowly.

[alegna]

Originally Posted by Llyra

I just think it's a conversation worth having, considering why ALL available carseats aren't made as safe as possible, so that ALL kids have an equal chance at living to grow up.

That's a point that drives me crazy, though I'm not sure the solution would be a pleasing one.

IMO the solution is to raise standards. What this would likely do is raise the price tag on the lower end carseats significantly. It would also probably LOWER the price tag on the top end by a little. But what it would mean is that all seats would meet a higher standard, but there would be NO $50 seats available for example.

Yes. It would cause some hardship. But it would just become the cost of having kids and a car.

-Angela

[queenjane]

Originally Posted by Llyra

Do you think you'd feel differently, if it were you who couldn't afford a safe car, or nutritious food?

I just think that it's important to keep in mind that what seems "necessary" to a lot of you, is WAY WAY out of reach for many, many families. It's easy to get caught up in thoughts like I can't believe anybody would put their kid in such an unsafe seat, and similar thoughts, and forget that they might WANT something safer, might know very well that something safer is available, and be entirely unable to access it.

While alot of posters here have "high end" seats, i see all the time the suggestions of cheaper seats that are also good/safe seats...i see recommendations here for the Scenera which is like $40-60 and also the ETA which is just over $100 or so. I'm not well versed in boosters at this point, but i'm sure there have been recommendations for cheaper alternatives there as well.

we have a britax blvd, that i got for about $250 including shipping (maybe it was $230, cant remember) on sale online. I expect that will last us awhile. I didnt have alot of time to prepare for my baby (he was placed as a foster child, with only an hour's notice or so), got an infant seat at walmart for about $70 (i think i put that on credit), then got the blvd when he was about four months old using my tax refund or maybe the foster stipend.

However, if i had several months to prepare for a new baby, i think i'd put twenty dollars back each month toward saving for a "good" seat, if money was a huge issue. Right now money is pretty tight (single mom on limited income with two kids), and if a new foster child was placed with me, i'd probably just go out and get a Scenera and start saving for another seat.

Of course, if you are truly broke and not having the money truly means NOT having it...then you do what you gotta do....but i think *most* people DO spend several hundred dollars preparing for a new child..they just spend it on other areas, like clothes or gadgets or super premium cloth diapers or a crib or whatever else. But if you take the price of a carseat and divide it over the number of years you'll actually get out of it, its kind of a bargain. Parents might spend $50 on an exercauser that can only be used for a few months, or a bassinet that can only be used for two or three months, etc. (Maybe not parents here, necessarily, but parents in general.)



Katherine

[filiadeluna]

My mom bought us a Chicco Keyfit 30 for our baby-to-be as a gift. I'm not sure what we are going to do for the next seat. I guess it depends on how much money we have, but it also has to be safe, of course.

[phathui5]

We got all of the ones we have now (3 Radians, 1 Britax Regent, 1 Britax Marathon) when we were rear-ended in December and GEICO paid for us to replace the car seats.

[guestmama9920]

Well I can win the contest for the most expensive car seat ever, ds's was $1400 a few years back the price came down a tad

http://www.babys-mart.co.uk/itemdetl.ph ... /Euro_HiDX

it was one of the only ones he could do RF at a low weight but was tall

now he has a maxi cosi priori, US version, the UK version doesn't do RF

We also didn't buy any baby equipment, DH works from home, we are very lucky to not have to worry about money but we also don't spend much either, KWIM?

I thing the best you can afford is important, the airline lost our seat for a few days, they gave us a brand new evenflo, it was so cheap and light compared to the one we had, even at 1 DS was falling over in the thing, I didn't even want to go out in the car (hard to do in LA)

Just because something is legal doesn't make it safe in my book, but if that is all you can afford, what can you do?

[Ks Mama]

Originally Posted by Llyra

Do you think you'd feel differently, if it were you who couldn't afford a safe car, or nutritious food?

I just think that it's important to keep in mind that what seems "necessary" to a lot of you, is WAY WAY out of reach for many, many families. It's easy to get caught up in thoughts like I can't believe anybody would put their kid in such an unsafe seat, and similar thoughts, and forget that they might WANT something safer, might know very well that something safer is available, and be entirely unable to access it.

Would I feel differently about our markets being government controlled, prices fixed, competition reduced or removed? No. The business we are in is a retail business. With price fixing/supply control we'd be out of business.

Would I wish that better made carseats were more afforadable? Sure. Just like I do wish certain better things were more affordable to me now... I wish we could afford a bigger house so each of my children could have their own bedrooms or that we had a separate space for dining/playroom/livingroom, or a kitchen bigger than a powderoom, haha! I wish we could have a new Honda Odessey or a Volvo, sure! But we choose to live where we do so that we can afford the things we think are MORE important - like an excellent education, britax seats, and a safe car. Certain things we DO consider necessary, and we can afford (the britax seats), and certain things we also consider necessary, and can't afford (the new safe car), so we do the best we can within our reach (the safest used car we can afford). I don't think though that because others can't afford certain things, that it makes those things less necessary for us, nor that it makes the expense less justifyable, which is what I was trying to say in minimal words, in my original response to the OP. And I don't think that because WE can't afford certain things, that those things should be adjusted down so that we can. I understand that everyone can't afford everything, and I can't agree that everything should be equal and the same for everyone.

As to thinking "I can't believe anybody would put their kid in such an unsafe seat or similar thoughts", I didn't state anything like that on this thread. I don't make a habit of looking in other folks' cars, so I don't recall even thinking that.

>>forget that they might WANT something safer, might know very well that something safer is available, and be entirely unable to access it.<<

Thus the availability of some safe, less expensive seats on the market (graco, evenflo), combined with many of the ideas posted on this thread - saving, planning ahead, coupons/sales, buying used, etc. Again, I support the free market economy.

[chickabiddy]

Most children can be safely harnessed and follow best practices for $200 total from birth to seatbelt age, in a Cosco Scenera from birth (RF to 35 pounds) until s/he outgrows the harness forward-facing and then a Graco Nautilus as a higher-weight harnessing seat, a belt-positioning booster, and then a backless booster.

ETA that most children should be able to use the Scenera at least to age three, so $1/week for three years = $150 for the Nautilus.

[emilysmama]

In the interests of full disclosure, I will state that I am lucky enough to be able to afford a high end car seat.

However, you can get very good affordable car seats at Wally World (that's Walmart, right?). You just have to make sure that you do your research so that your purchase is an informed decision and that you don't spend your hard earned money on a bad car seat.

Also, if it is not used properly, the most expensive car seat in the world won't hold a candle to a correctly used inexpensive car seat.

If I couldn't afford to buy an expensive car seat, that's not really a big deal. If I don't take the time to carefully read the car seat instruction manual, that is a really big deal and can be done at no cost to me. Since the manuals are downloadable from the internet, and you can get all kinds of youtube videos demonstrating how to install carseats, it's easier than ever to use an inexpensive car seat properly.

Even really basic things, like knowing when a child is too big or two small for a given car seat is more important to your child's safety than spending big bucks on a Britax. And that can be done for free.

So even though it doesn't answer your question, I do want to tell you that you are a great mother for learning and thinking about all of these issues.

By the way, as a mother who cloth diapered my daughter, I do think you can do it cheaply with a pretty low up front cost. But if I could only consider one crunchy thing at a time, I think start with the car seat before starting the cloth diapers. Your child will be diapers for a long time, and you can start cloth diapering at any stage. Even if it took a long time to get to the point when you are ready to do a cloth diapers, you can always try cloth trainers for toilet training.

[jrabbit]

i think this is a great topic!

our answer: we don't have all the 'other' stuff, we shop resale, and we asked for car seat $$ from our parents instead of letting them just pick random stuff to give.

when we became pregnant with dd3, we researched car seats to figure out what would fit in our car. it was cheaper by far to buy more expensive car seats than a new bigger car. so, what fits is a sunshine radian & peg perego viaggio & backless booster. we bought the viaggio as a floor model with a discount and the radian was on sale coincidentally.

to save money: we don't have a crib or high chair, i breastfeed, i have a used stroller frame for the car seat, we bought all cloth dipes used, all maternity & nursing used, all clothes actually! i got rid of everything after DD2 except slings & my used macclaren umbrella stroller. the only other baby equip that we bought this time was a used bumbo and bouncer.

we stay at home a lot, cook from scratch, and don't indulge in lots of mainstream buying. we have satelite, internet and 2 cars - plenty of luxuries, but our day-to-day spending is constrained, so buying car seats is a big deal.

like it has been said if you think of the car seat in terms of how long you'll use it, i think that its value is improved: $250 for 3 years is not much money.

--janis

[Llyra]

Originally Posted by Ks Mama

As to thinking "I can't believe anybody would put their kid in such an unsafe seat or similar thoughts", I didn't state anything like that on this thread. I don't make a habit of looking in other folks' cars, so I don't recall even thinking that.

Oh, I know you didn't say that. But plenty people around here have, to the point that I avoid this forum even when I have a legitimate question. It makes me feel alienated, because the assumption exists that if you don't buy Britax, you're neglectful.

[KayleeZoo]

We're one of those families who have had lots of high-end seats through the years. Car seat safety is the number one priority for us; I'll spend money on a car seat before buying anything else- before purchasing anything for a baby on the way, I make sure that we have an infant seat and a convertible. I've done a lot of research, and prefer to buy seats from companies that I trust- ones who handle their recalls responsibly, ones who do testing above and beyond what's expected of them by the govt, etc. We spend more on seats than some people do, but it's important to us- just like buying all organic is important to some folks.

Our 3 kids currently ride in a Britax Frontier, The First Years True Fit, Sunshine Kids Radian, Sunshine Kids Monterey, Britax Parkway, Recaro Como, Graco AirBooster (spare for carpooling), and a Graco Nautilus. I've got a new Baby Trend Flex Loc waiting for the baby due in September and we'll be buying the new True Fit with Anti-Rebound bar for him/her or a Britax Marathon. I often give away our spare seats when I run across someone who needs them- I've recently gifted a Britax Marathon, Britax Wizard, Snug Ride and Parkway. I think car seat karma is real; whenever I've gifted a seat, I find a sweet deal on one the next time I need to buy.

We save, and pay cash, or shuffle the budget if necessary. I've put off buying other things that we needed to pay for seats. My kids have seats in both of our vehicles; so the second set is considered a spare, I guess. But it's what works for our family. I don't like installing/uninstalling seats frequently. And I won't buy from certain companies, so that limits our options (Dorel and Evenflo are out of the question for us, so no Scenera for a back-up or to buy extra rear facing time). I would absolutely put a seat on a credit card and not think twice. I would also ask family for money- something we've never done before- to buy a seat that I felt would best protect my child.

Dh drives an older minivan, and we have never gone on a family vacation (this year will be the first)- partly because we've needed things like car seats at times when it was a choice between buying a $300 car seat and a $40 seat, for more than one child at a time, we chose to buy seats. But we don't buy organic food- so there ya go We do try to buy other stuff as frugally as possible- I don't remember the last time I bought one piece of children's clothing at full-price.

ETA- because my post wasn't long enough One really good reason to buy a high-end seat is the customer service you get. Britax has replaced 2 seats for us for free; and 3 covers. I've purchased 11 Britax seats over the past 9 years, and they admitted to me that I'm considered a very good customer and they like to do things to help people who are loyal to Britax when they can. I've read at car-seat.org about problems that people have had with some other companies fixing serious issues with their seats; piece of mind knowing that a company stands behind their product and will make things right goes a long way with me. Paying for a seat once and then having it last a full 6-7 years can be cheaper than buying several cheaper seats. So it can absolutely be a more fiscally responsible decision to spend more up front.

[jrabbit]

I had intended to comment earlier on the notion that certain seats are better than others: that may be true, but it shouldn't be distorted to say that some seats are unsafe. All car seats are tested to a minimum standard of safety, so they are all SAFE. Some will perform better in a side impact crash, some are better suited to certain cars - those are things that can be proven, but they don't inherently imply that if you choose a 'less expensive' car seat you don't care enough about the safety of your children. The way you drive and if you USE a car seat are much more definitive ways of proving that you care.

I know that's been said before in this thread, but it bears repeating, I think. It would sadden me to see this type of a dialog turn into a beat-down of folks for buying a less expensive seat.

--janis

[cutekid]

I'll be honest the first car seat was used from Ebay, the second was given to me from my mother, and the third I was able to get from Kyle David Miller Foundation, our Fourth Carseat I was able to get after I got my inheritence.

If I had it all to do over again, I would have bought my DS a Marathon when he out grew his Baby Bucket at 3 months old. I wanted the "BIG SEAT", because I thought it would last a long time, and end up saving money. Turns out I was right, but $250 on seat at the time seemed like Robbery. He would just now be out growing it at 4.5 and I wouldn't have had to asked KDMF for a seat when he out grew his convertible at the age of three (he actually got the radian on his birth day)

Denise

[DahliaRW]

Originally Posted by Llyra

Oh, I know you didn't say that. But plenty people around here have, to the point that I avoid this forum even when I have a legitimate question. It makes me feel alienated, because the assumption exists that if you don't buy Britax, you're neglectful.

I have NEVER heard that said or implied on this forum. I think that is pure misinterpretation. Now I have heard it said that putting a 2 or 3 yo in a booster is neglectful, and I agree. But that is WAY different. I often hear non-britax seats recommended, like the scenera, ETA, nautilus, true fit, radian, etc. In fact, I have only ever owned one britax because newer seats like the radian and nautilus fit my need and are just as safe, at a lower cost. An no one has even remotely implied that using these seats is neglectful.

Now are Britax nice seats if you can afford them, sure. But anymore, they arent' even the ones that will last you the longest (they were the only HWH seats a few years back). Now the true fit and radian will last you LONGER than a marathon or boulevard at a lower cost, and IMO are just as safe assuming they are properly installed.

[KayleeZoo]

Now the true fit and radian will last you LONGER than a marathon or boulevard at a lower cost, and IMO are just as safe assuming they are properly installed.

Yep, and the True Fit has infant pillows that actually fit a smaller baby better than the infant insert in the Britax Boulevard. The True Fit is relatively easy to find on sale/use a coupon for, because The First Years doesn't regulate price the way Britax does.

[moondiapers]

The same way we fund our yearly car insurance payment or any other non-regular expense. We plan for it and set a bit aside each month.