How To Save $$$ on Car Seats
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The affordable Graco Snugride 32 fits a heavier baby than the previous model, but most babies outgrow car seats by height.
If you drive a car, you’ll need a car seat before your baby even leaves the hospital, so this is one item you need to plan ahead for. But there are hundreds of car seats! How do you get a good deal without sacrificing safety or quality? Oh, I’m so glad you asked.
Before you go looking for a deal, you need to know what you’re looking for. The first thing to know about car seats is that they expire after 6 years, because the plastic degrades over time, AND they need to be thrown out after being in an accident, because this also weakens the frame of the seat. So car seats are usually best purchased new. Also, some brands such as Britax are tested in Europe where they test car seats at higher speeds, so a five-star safety rating from Britax means their car seats have been proven safe in a collision at speeds 10 miles an hour greater than the other 5-star-rated car seat you’re considering. Then, car seats have weight AND height limits, and most babies outgrow their infant seats by height first, so even though it’s nice that the Graco Snugride 32 fits two more pounds than it did in 2008, don’t let that be your deciding factor for which seat to buy, because it may never come into play. Finally, another detail you’ll want to look at is if your infant seat is compatible with your stroller if you want to use it with a newborn. Many strollers fit a limited range of car seat models, so check the specs of the stroller you’re buying to see if your favorite car seat is on the list of compatible seats–and then you will need to buy the adapter that allows your car seat to snap into the stroller.
Okay, so now on to saving big bucks. The best deal of all is FREE, right? So first, look for car seat giveaways. Sunshine Kids, Safety First, Britax, and even Recaro regularly sponsor car seat giveaways. You can find these giveaways on aggregator sites such as Prizey.net or by searching Twitter for the hashtag “#giveaway” or “#win” and the name of the seat you want or the word “car seat.” There are so many ways to find giveaways, in fact, that I may need to write a separate post about this for the uninitiated–that is if you really want to get hooked. Once you start on giveaways, it’s hard to stop! Consider yourself warned. 
AAA used to offer free car seats to people who needed them–you just had to know to ask. I heard that this program was phased out with the recession, along with the car seat installation inspections at AAA offices, but you might call around to your local AAA offices and see if they still have some spare car seats hanging around, even if the program no longer exists.
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The Britax Advocate is great for compact cars, but its sister seat the Marathon will fit kids up to 65 pounds.
There are also those crazy promos I told you about last week, where you can get X number of store credits to an online retailer such as Franklin Goose, often totaling enough to buy you a car seat. In fact, if I didn’t have my eye on a Britax Marathon for my baby girl, which Franklin Goose doesn’t carry, that’s exactly what I would have done with the nearly $200 I received in free store credit on their site recently.
If you are having a baby shower, your family members might want to get you a larger item such as a car seat, so go ahead and register for one. If you register with a store that gives you 10% off any item on your registry that wasn’t purchased before your shower date, you have an instant sale afterward. Woot!
Finally, another way to get a car seat for free is to accept a gently used seat from a friend, but this will only work out if your friend has only used her car seat for one kid, because any longer than that and it will be on the brink of expiration. Also not recommended for car seat buying are Craigslist, Freecycle, and garage sales, because you need to know not only the age of the car seat but also if the seat has ever been in an accident, and that’s hard to verify with a used seat.
Can’t find a car seat for free? You can still find one at a discount if you have time on your side. Flash sale sites offer heavy discounts (I saw a 45% off sale on certain Graco models ending today on bTrendie and a $30 off Sunshine Kids sale on BabyEarth). Flash sale sites are websites that offer one or two items at a heavy discount for one or two days, or until the item sells out, which often happens within minutes. The best way to shop flash sale sites is to know what you’re looking for ahead of time and monitor several sites. Popular flash sale sites include: BabySteals.com, BabyHalfOff.com, bTrendie.com, Totsy.com, HauteLook.com, MamaBargains.com, GreenBabyBargains.com, AmazingBabyDealz.com, EcoBabyBuys.com, BabyEarth.com, KidSteals.com, Kids.Woot.com, and many, many more….
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