We just had our first kid. They’re not cheap—we know we’re gonna get drained. But instead of buying into the clamor that our child’s life depends on buying everything new, we had to look at the source.
We bought a car seat/stroller combo package that retails at just under $500— for $100.
“Gasp—! Oh my… is that even legal?!?!” consumer parents exclaim, “Did you know they expire?! And could have undetectable damage?? And, and—this is your child! Any chance, no matter how small the odds, is too great a risk to take!”
Let’s just take a breath, step back and look at the origin of this mentality.
It’s a fact that baby seat expiration dates are 100% fabricated by the manufacturers. The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board does not endorse expiration dates.
Now let’s follow the chain of events that would be required for a child’s safety to be compromised. Spoiler alert: multiple institutions already have overlapping, stringent safety regulations in place to protect us.
1. Our car seat was manufactured ten months before we bought it (official tag reads November 2016) same as new in stores.
2. This means it would’ve had to have been an accident during its short ten months of existence.
3. This previous accident would have to be destructive enough to damage the seat, yet at the same time not destructive enough to cause any visible damage (having removed the outer cover, the interior foam structure is pristine).
4. To receive any type of insurance payout from this (already very unlikely) accident, the person would need to submit evidence that they had destroyed the car seat in question: cutting the safety belts and submitting photos accordingly. So the seller would have to either bypass a lucrative insurance payout, or commit insurance fraud—all for a measly hundred bucks.
5. We would have to get in an accident during the brief eleven months before our infant outgrows the seat.
6. Despite the seat seemingly in perfect condition, the unfortunate car accident would have to be severe—but not catastrophic (a head-on with a semi would kill us all regardless). It would have to be just violent enough to reveal some sort of secret styrofoam damage that otherwise would’ve performed enough to make the difference.
Each of these three scenarios are so statistically farfetched on their own, the necessary combination makes the combination of all scenarios ludicrous beyond astronomical.
Long story short, we saved over 400 bucks on a high-end car seat with two bases and a matching top-of-the-line stroller.
No worries, the kids are alright.
