I think I’ve established my thrifty credentials already, but I’ll just say again — I hate to spend money! And I hate for you to spend money! So shop for a mattress pad instead of a mattress. The price difference is like night and day.

You can get a regular mattress pad, sure, but a memory foam one will give you the best of both worlds: an easy and cheap(er) fix for your mattress problem.

Once you get the mattress pad, you can secure it to the bed using a more traditional mattress pad or cover. In looking at my bed, you wouldn’t see that it has a 4 inch memory foam pad underneath.

At the risk of repeating myself, look for high density foam. The higher the density, the more cells will be working for your comfort. Higher density = more materials used. More materials used = high price. But, it’s worth it!

Once you get the mattress pad delivered, you have to let it breathe and get back to its natural height. Unrolling it reminded me of making Pillsbury crescent rolls. You have to be very careful unrolling the pad. The memory foam is sticky and so you want to be gentle in unrolling it. You can tear the foam and that would be bad.

I unrolled mine in the garage.
Pongo, as any good cat would do, was there to supervise.
Bix, on the other hand, hated the smell and hung out in the kitchen.

I set up two fans to help circulate the air and get rid of the smell. It was pretty strong at first. That’s to be expected. This isn’t something you find in nature — memory foam is created using god knows what sort of chemicals.

The packaging said to let the pad air out for two days. In the course of about four hours we got to watch it regain its real shape. I guess they vacuum seal the pads for shipping. There were a couple of spots that I thought “Uh-uh, no way is this dent going away. I’ll have to return it!” Four hours later…. it was gone.

Pongo walked across it like he was walking on snow. It was very funny and now I wish I’d grabbed the camera. I didn’t know then that I’d be writing a blog about memory foam! Missed chances…..

So two days later, we had the memory foam mattress pad on the bed. Made up the bed with a lovely down alternative comforter we bought for the occasion and ta-dah! New memory foam bed. Just in time to sleep like a baby.