Baby Bargains Dishes Dirt

"Consumer Reports may give a nod to a large, one-size-fits-all car seat because it tested well in a laboratory," she points out, "while Alan and Denise Fields will say, 'Parents hate this seat. It takes up too much space and the buckles don't work right.'"

It's advice the Fieldses plan to keep giving even as their personal experiences with infants fade into memory. "We're stuck. It's like Groundhog Day," cracks Alan. "We have baby food in the fridge, and our kids are eleven and fourteen. It's absurd."

Despite being the children of the nation's frugal-family experts, Denise says her sons don't have it rough. Sure, their nurseries were bare, she admits: "To be perfectly honest, babies don't care." Nowadays, however, as the only grandchildren on both sides of the family, they get more than their share of goodies. "They are hopelessly spoiled when it comes to toys," she says. "They want for nothing."

As their boys get older and the Fieldses grow out of the wedding-planning and baby-making generations, some people wonder if there's one more topic they will investigate. "The third leg of the triangle is probably funerals," Alan says, adding that there are no current plans for a Death Bargains. "We just haven't gone there."

Yet.