I love writing about products that exemplify ridiculous consumerism. In the past, I’ve written about the $240 lunch bag purse, $450 swim trunks and the $6,000 disco toilet. Today, I bring you the $3000 stroller. But first, take a trip down memory lane with me.
Your Babyhood
Think back to the time when you were one-year old. I know, it was probably a long time ago, but bear with me. Did you lament the fact that mom and dad made you wear clothes from K-Mart? Did you hate your parents for buying you off-brand diapers that made your butt as red as a baboon’s? Were you embarrassed to have second-hand toys? Were you scarred from the other babies at the park pointing fingers in your direction and laughing?
HELL NO! We don’t remember any of that because we were babies and babies can’t form memories! Babies sit in their little swings and laugh at their own farts in between pooping themselves. Life is simple and probably blissful (seems pretty good to me). There is no peer pressure.
So why on earth do parents buy designer clothes or similar accessories for their infants? Well, we all know why. It’s to impress the other parents. What a dumb exercise.
Roll like a Goth
Anyway, my blood pressure went up a couple notches when I read about the new Aston Martin stroller that you can buy for the princely sum of $3,000. Now, Aston Martin makes fine automobiles. I lust after their sexy shapes. But a stroller? Come on. What are you thinking putting your name on something like this Aston Martin?
Unlike their cars, this thing is plain ugly. It looks like something a goth parent (do goths reproduce?) would buy Baby Munster. I have to admit that it actually scares me a bit. It looks like an egg sack from a horror movie about aliens. I’d be afraid that if I looked into this thing to see the baby, an alien would leap out and latch onto my face.
Where do you draw the line on baby spending?
In our own sphere of friends and family, we see people that struggle with money, but somehow find the means to buy their children designer duds. Here’s an idea; go to the thrift store and put that money towards their college! Your baby doesn’t care about clothes, but your teen will care (hopefully) about student loans.
I can understand springing for nicer clothes with older kids. Teenagers can be just plain mean. Even then though, I’m not going to go crazy.
Every day is Halloween
Now, I have to admit that the Steampunk Stroller would be cool on Halloween. I’d dress it up with some fake blood and scare the neighbors (only thing scarier would be me in those swim trunks). Other than that, they can keep this thing. Unless they’re going to throw in an Aston Martin. I’m game then.
What do you think of the stroller? If you have kids, how do you acquire their stuff?
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I’m going to speak up in defense of the expensive strollers. They’re popular in my middle class neighborhood in NYC because they are much more durable than the cheap ones, and if you don’t have a car and are walking a few miles a day running errands with the baby, having a sturdy stroller makes a lot of sense. They also hold their value very well. You can buy a used Bugaboo for 75% of the retail price and resell it a few years later for almost what you paid for it. Craigslist and eBay are goldmines for cheap baby gear because most children outgrow the stuff before they wear it out and you can but used and resell later.
Meg recently posted…Around the Neighborhood
Whoah Meg! Possibly they are popular in the middle class neighborhood because of Jonesy syndrome!? Just another monthly payment to add to the over-endowed house and car…that 90% of people in the ‘hood can’t actually afford…
Durable? Maybe…but do you actually need a stroller of any type at all? My answer to that is a definitive NO! Strollers are for shopping malls…which any frugalista looking at early retirement shouldn’t be caught dead in. Want to take your kid for a walk or hike (age 0-3 max!)? Get something far more versatile – like a baby carrier. Ergo baby carriers on Craigslist are $80 or how about a $20 Craigslist wagon for picnics and playdates in the ‘hood?
After age 4 – kids are quite capable of walking and tricycle riding.
That’s my $3000 rant.
I live in New York City. Most of my neighbors don’t own cars. How, exactly, are you suggesting they take the baby to the subway, the grocery store, pharmacy or park, without a stroller or a car? You can not reasonably use a wagon to go to a tiny NYC grocer. Not everyone wants to baby wear or finds it comfortable, and strollers are handy because you can shove groceries and packages in the bottom compartment. I walk several miles a day, and would have no interest in baby wearing the entire time.
My neighborhood is almost all immigrants and people here live very humbly, but a high end stroller, bought used and resold at the end of its tenure, ends up costing a maximum of $150. That seems a reasonable enough purchase. Judgmental much? $150 is not going to permanently ruin anyone’s retirement plans, and your insinuations about my neighbors are both presumptive and arrogant.
Meg recently posted…Consumerism Thursday
Perhaps you didn’t read my opening paragraph. I gave not one, but two options. I will now include a third option…I know…I’m escalating in price…perhaps even as high as $100 used…but the utility is superior to a stroller: The bike with child trailer.
The problem with buying even used high end…assuming you *only* lose $150 is the $1500 tied up while you have the stroller. This is not only stressful (theft) but opportunity lost. Over 5 years – $1500 invested would have earned $500 at 6% compounded. Now the lost $150 is a lost $650.
I make no insinuations about your neighbors specifically. I make insinuations about all people who overspend while trying to naively justify Cadillac luxuries that aren’t necessary. I’m by no means saying buy cheap crap however. Price can be justified when there is a return on that investment….such as a good kitchen appliance. A high priced stroller to be used for a few years is not a wise ROI.
Do me a favor, please. Follow this link, and scroll down to the “Main Street and Roosevelt Avenue, Flushing, Queens” image.
http://www.streetsblog.org/2007/12/14/a-new-sales-pitch-for-congestion-pricing/
Please let me know where, exactly, I’m to park that bike and trailer while I do my shopping? And do explain how one is supposed to get either of those onto a subway, either, should you need to venture to another neighborhood. That photo is a pretty normal traffic load. There aren’t parking lots in the area with bike space, stores are too big for wagons, and not everyone has the fitness to carry a child around in a carrier.
Crappy strollers break easily and tend to be for suburbanites taking a baby from their car to a shopping center. They break regularly–I see them on trash day regularly. The sidewalks are uneven; I wear out a metal grocery cart about every six months when and axle snaps. What my neighbors do is one of the smarter options for where we live and our circumstances. You buy a used stroller like this:
http://newyork.craigslist.org/mnh/bab/3974966401.html
Use it until the kid outgrows it, and resell it at nearly what you paid for it. Yes, there’s a small opportunity cost, but you have to transport the kid somehow, and this is one of the more viable ways.
I don’t run around trying to tell people who live in rural areas they should ditch their cars and bicycle everywhere, because I don’t presume to know how their lives work. I suggest you try it.
Meg recently posted…Consumerism Thursday: KitchenAid Disappointment
Oh man, this thing is ridiculous. We overspent on our stroller deployment, but nothing like this! I think like a lot of parents, we somewhat panicked because we didn’t know what to expect. We actually did buy the bassinet attachment for our stroller thinking we could buy just one item and have some versatility. Um, we used that thing like 8 times as a stroller. We could have gotten a much cheaper bassinet and just carried the little buy around for those four weeks. I should post something on how much money we wasted buying dumb baby crap one of these days because it was a lot!
Pretired Nick recently posted…Pretirement story: Making the move to Mexico
Its easy to go overnboard when it comes to kids. I’m guilty of it myself ($50 cute dinosaur musical mobile).
With our small children now, we go mostly used. They don’t care. And, I’d rather get a higher quality used product (which there are no shortage of) than a junky new one.
I’ve gone on a couple of stroller shopping trips (not for us in case anyone’s jumping to conclusions!) and price didn’t seem to be related to quality. Some of the cheap ones were just as smooth of a ride (important in a jogger so the little dude wouldn’t wake up with every rock we hit) as the expensive ones!
Mrs PoP @ Planting Our Pennies recently posted…Just Out Of School, Deep In Debt, Job Sucks. What To Do?
The strollers I’ve seen that really handle the abuse of NYC sidewalks seem to have certain things in common:
1. Tires, not wheels. Anything with plastic wheels seems to fall apart pretty quickly, but there are several places around here that will repair stroller tires, and they seem to last.
2. Metal, not plastic. I once witnessed the tray on a plastic stroller snap off from an over enthusiastic toddler. Metal is much sturdier.
4. Cleanable. Some of the really cheapie strollers seem to be made of stuff that is hard to clean, which makes them look gross fast.
Anecdotally, I usually see Gracos and Safety Firsts out on the streets, broken beyond repair, on trash day, but I have a neighbor who is using a fourth hand Bugaboo that’s on it’s sixth child or something. It’s in good enough shape now that it could be resold again used.
Meg recently posted…Consumerism Thursday
I’m all for buying quality stuff. For example, I don’t buy junk tools. I also buy Apple stuff. Both cost more, but my iPod (2002!) MacBook (2008) and my iPhone (2009) all still work like the day I bought them.
Regarding the stroller, I just don’t think that you have to spend $3,000 to get something decent.
While I agree that $3,000 is crazy for a stroller, I would assume that the folks who are in the market for one of these contraptions probably have more money coming out of their eyeballs than I could dream of. Like the type who eat $2,000 gold flecked hamburgers because they can. But who knows…
Tara @ Streets Ahead Living recently posted…I want to get off Verizon… give me a suggestion!
“gold flaked hamburgers”
I read that the Japanese, before their market crashed a couple decades ago, would sprinkle their ice cream with gold flakes. Reminds me a little bit of my Goldschlager infused college days. No comment on that.
I see your point a bit, but on the other hand, if I had a billion dollars, I still wouldn’t spend my money on stuff like this. Seems like there are a million other ways to put your dollars to better use.
I have two very young children so I’m very aware of what you speak.
It’s amazing to see how certain expensive contraptions/devices end up getting very limited use when it comes right down to it.
I imagine I’ll just it along to another young family when the time comes. Luckily almost all of it was gifted to us, the circle of life…
And an Aston Martin stroller, well, how ELSE will everyone know that this baby has MONEY. If you don’t ADVERTISE then other babies won’t like them! It’s just a fact.
No Waste recently posted…Why I’m A Boglehead (Part III)
“It’s amazing to see how certain expensive contraptions/devices end up getting very limited use when it comes right down to it.”
Yes, totally! Our kids have all kinds of nice toys, mostly from well-meaning relatives. However, they are just as happy to play in the dirt.
“And an Aston Martin stroller, well, how ELSE will everyone know that this baby has MONEY. If you don’t ADVERTISE then other babies won’t like them! It’s just a fact.”
LOL!!!
I think it’s kind of cute. But, I can only see Angelina Jolie comfortably walking around town with it. I wouldn’t spend $3000 on a stroller…but, I have spent thousands on stupid sh$t in the past so I can’t judge. LOL!
If I was Batman, I may spring for this thing. However, I’m Wussman/Nerdman, so people would only point their fingers and laugh if I had such a thing!
Nice find! We don’t have children yet, but when we do our plan (at least now) is to buy most everything used. I agree that spending that kind of money on a stroller seems way, way over the top.
Done by Forty recently posted…July Net Worth Update (In August…)
Used is the way to go! Mrs. 1500 loves garage sales and thrift stores. Our kids wear good stuff which we buy for pennies on the dollar.
I’m all for spending money on quality items that’ll last a while but 3K?? Ridiculous. My parents keep a lot of the baby stuff they used for my brothers and I in hope that someday they will have grandkids….I know I’d much rather use a perfectly good stroller from the 1980s for my kid and use the money I save to oh, I dont know, start a college fund?
Then again I own in shares in companies that sell these items so the people that buy these things end up helping me in the long run…
Rob recently posted…Goldman Sachs & The Programmer – Part I
I’d bet that 1980s stroller is better quality than most new ones you can buy today.
“Then again I own in shares in companies that sell these items so the people that buy these things end up helping me in the long run…”3
LOL! I don’t agree with joining them, but don’t see anything wrong with making money off of them!
“Plus, I agree with you, the stroller looks terrible.”
Right! I’d have to wear all black clothes and get some ironic tattoos to go along with this thing.
3k for a baby stroller…um wow. I can only hope it comes with a set of pacifiers that are encrusted with diamonds, emeralds, sapphires, etc. I think someone needs to photograph that baby’s life so when he asks why his parents can’t help pay for college, he can see visual evidence why.
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Maybe it comes with a cocaine storage area for their Wall Street parents too!
I feel bad for people who feel that they have to buy stuff like this. Wake up and realize what’s really important before your 80 and look in life’s rear-view mirror with regret.
This is actually pretty funny. This is purely status seeking whoredom for the parents to show off to their friends. Lots of people spend money on dumb things and this is not even that bad I would say. It seems the more excess you have the more novelty you seek.
Kevin Watts @ Graduatingfromdebt recently posted…How To Buy Health Insurance As A Twenty-Something Without Adding To Your Debt Load?
Yep, my 500 words pretty much summed up in 2 sentences!
But I bet that thing handles like a dream 🙂
Holy crap, you made me laugh! You win the award for comment of the day!
We bought all of our baby gear used (except the car seats), we went “shopping” for a stroller, and decided what model we wanted, and then I just started watching craigslist for one. Found a new in box Maclaren for half price – it’s been well used, and once we’re sure we can go to an amusement park without needing it, we’ll be selling it (probably for half of what we bought) – we rarely use it anymore except for long days out, she prefers to walk. For the amount of time we’ve used it, a $3000 stroller would have probably cost us $50 per use!
I do buy a good bit of her clothes new – from Kohl’s, on sale and with coupons, so they’re about the same price as going to consignment sales. That’s when I buy her clothes at all. She’s the only grandkid on both sides of the family, so she gets a *lot* of things from grandparents – and I’m perfectly happy to let them buy her stuff.
Mom @ Three is Plenty recently posted…Shopping for a Freezer Cooking Session
Good for you! You sound a lot like us actually. Almost everything we buy is used as well.
I buy most things for my son used. All that baby gear is perfect to buy used (except for car seats). I even bought used cloth diapers, and then sold them on craigslist when we were finished with them! Especially for kids, buying used is the way to go since they grow out of toys and clothes before they can do much damage!
Great post! I had no idea a stroller like that existed!
Green Money Stream recently posted…The Green Money Stream Puts $1200 in Your Pocket
Hi GMS-
Yes, we’re on the same page! We bought as much as we could used and the crazy thing is that we’d sell much of it for the same price.