Now that I have insurance, I went shopping for new eyeglasses for the first time in many years. The first $300 I spend on them in a calendar year are covered.
I start at Costco. The prices are obviously right, but they’re all so wide that they make me look like I’m wearing novelty sunglasses.
I got the opposite route and try an optician near my workplace. Much better selection for my face, though I reject rectangular lenses and frame that have too much of a “horn”.
Finally, I find frames that look good on me. They’re titanium, and thus durable, but the metal is thin (thickness of frame has been a reason I’ve rejected other pairs too). They’re also over $500.
Any suggestions on course of action? I was tempted to start the process there and be done with it, but my cheap side wouldn’t let me do it immediately. Would any place cheaper, especially national chains, have the same problem as Costco? What’s my best bet to find frames that I like as much (although I admit they may just have been the only really recent design I saw in either trip, so I may have been jumping on them a bit).
I’m the wrong one to ask. I got ones I like for my big face, high-density lenses, Crizal, the works. For $600+. For the glasses I wear only when my contacts can’t be worn.
Zenni. Even with my ridiculously strong prescription, I pay under $100. And I get compliments on my frames all the time (I’ve ordered at least four pairs over the years and have liked them all).
Yep. And you also just have a sense of what works for you and what doesn’t. The frames all include measurements, so, for instance, I know that if the lens area is bigger or smaller than , they’re going to look stupid. Places like Warby Parker let you pick a few and try them on first.
Another Zenni devotee. I haven’t spent more than $20 on a pair of glasses in years. I do the photo upload thing to see how they’ll look. I’m not super picky about that, though, since I only wear glasses when I’m slumming around the house.
Definitely not a fan of Zenni. But I am a fan of eyebuydirect.com. Sure I pay a bit more but I am happy with theirs and totally disgusted with Zenni’s.
What’s the process for getting your prescription to buy glasses outside your eye doctors office? Do you just ask the front desk person for it? Do they give you a hard time asking for it?
I’m in a small town and almost feel that I have an obligation to buy them through him. But if you can get glasses so cheap, it seems odd not to. The last pair I bought were around $400 but I’ve been using them daily (at least nightly - I wear contacts during the day) for over six years now. They are still in fine shape but I’m becoming an old guy that needs the bifocal thing.
Do not buy glasses online. There are too many measurements that require face to face time with your optician.
I am a former ABO certified optician. At the time I changed careers, over 10 years ago, the wholesale cost on decent frames averaged around $120. If the markup on prescription glasses were as high as a lot of people seem to think, I could have retired a wealthy man 10 years ago.
I used to get substantial discounts on spectacles, sometimes less than wholesale, and still paid over $200 for a pair. Now I usually spend about $600-$700, and you know what? They’re probably the cheapest necessity I buy. There’s no way in hell I’d pay less, because I’ve seen the kind of crap the online places sell, and I’ve seen the shoddy work they do.
I guess the question then becomes, what’s your experience or suggestions with chain places versus independent places? Will cheaper frames be worth the money I save?
As for my prescription, my eye doctor just gave it to me, without asking. Though it does remind me that I got my previous pair from them, so that’s another option.
But that won’t let you know how the glasses fit on your face , when I get reading glasses they’re measure across my eyes to see if they’ll fit right .
I pay around $250 for mine , I get a discount b/c I paying out of my pocket .
You’re paying $600-700 for a single pair of eyeglasses and you’re happy to do so? That seems like a lot. Are they bifocals? Do they have some sort of elaborate coating? Are the frames solid silver? Because that seems like an awful lot to pay for a single pair of eyeglasses.
Yes, you have to measure your own “pupilary distance” and input that along with your prescription, but the website walks you through it.
I understand that there are lots of other variables that a website can’t handle, and you might not be getting an optimal fit. If I wore glasses all day long, I’d certainly have them fit by a pro. But for the hour or so that I wear them in the morning before inserting my contacts, I’m not going to pay premium prices.
I tend to agree. I went through a few rounds of trying to save money on lenses (I wear progressives) and I found major differences between the budget and ultra-premium lenses. I even bought into the marketing that Costco’s most expensive (but still cheap on the larger continuum) progressive lenses were good. Nope, they didn’t hold a candle to my much more expensive ‘name brand’ lenses in terms of corridor width and other quality metrics I don’t know the name of
High quality titanium frames are going to cost some money. Back when I was earning a really nice salary I bought two such frames and they served me 20+ years. (I’ve broken 4 or 5 frames over the years, so toughness/durability is a must for me for frames).
My current pair is stainless steel - not quite as good, but a lot less expensive.
I think there’s something to be said for a professional fitting for your first pair, but then, I’m someone who wears my glasses 16 (or more!) hours a day. If you only wear yours an hour or two, or for driving, or just for reading, fit will be less crucial and you can probably cut a few corners.
Beware of overselling of extras. I don’t get anti-reflective coating, for example, or high index. I spent my limited funds on sturdy frames and progressive lenses. But that’s me.
I did, at one time, spent nearly $1,000 for a pair of glasses but at the time I could afford that and they had all the bells and whistles. They were great - and I used the frames for over 20 years, as I said, replacing the lenses over time as my prescription changed. Over the long haul I probably saved money because I wasn’t repeatedly buying new frames, but that’s a big chunk of money all at once.
I pay $300-500 for glasses at my optometrist’s office. I’m like gigi, I get all the bells and whistles, Crizal lenses. I wear them 16 hours a day and get at least 2 years out of them, so I figure less than $1 a day I can see reliably and don’t have to deal with scratching or shoddy frames, it’s well worth it.
I figure I’ll pay $20 for a meal that keeps me full for 8 hours one day, I can pay $1 a day for seeing