I’m poor right now - mainly because I’m trying really hard to pay off some bills before I go to graduate school in the fall, so I’m attempting to eliminate all unecessary spending. And for someone like me…that’s difficult.
Well, on my move two months ago, I somehow lost my glasses. I can’t find them anywhere. This was pretty stupid of me, and I’ve been wearing my contacts, but I need my glasses. I need to give my eyes a rest from my daily wear of contacts. So I scheduled an appointment at the eye doctor’s yesterday. I had my eye exam done, and then made my way to Wal-Mart’s vision center to find some glasses.
I got two pairs - a regular daily wear pair and a pair of prescription sunglasses - BOTH for a grand total of $87! The daily wear frames were a whopping $9, and the sunglasses were $34 for the frames. Throw in my lenses, and I’m set. Since my last pair of glasses were $150 for ONE pair (that’s what i get for buying from a NYC vision store), I’m thrilled. And both pairs are really cute, too - the little cat’s eye glasses in black for my daily wear and wire sunglasses that look like something I’d buy at the mall.
I’ve made rude comments about Wal-Mart before (mainly involving the words ‘white’ , ‘trash’, and ‘screaming children’), but I’ll stop that. I’m so thrilled with my new glasses that I won’t even say another negative word about them.
Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Ava. Wal-Mart will come through again with some fit of idiocy that will make you regret them before the week is out! They’ve never failed for me yet!
Ahhhh…Walmart is OK. My girlfriend gets her contacts there and she swears by them. And it’s not Walmart’s fault that people bring their screaming kids there. Plus, I get make-up, cat food, shampoo, paper products, and cleaning solutions way cheap. Don’t ask me to wear Walmart clothes…I draw the line there. But for other stuff, they’re ok.
They had to have been gold-plated, right? Sheesh - that’s a lot of money for some glasses! I even have a slight astigmatism (although I’ve never had it before…he found it last night), and they didn’t charge me extra for the lenses.
And Kalhoun, no, it’s not Wal-Mart’s fault. But it sure as heck hasn’t made me want to go in there much.
I got my last pair of contacts and glasses at Wal-Mart too, far cheaper than I’ve ever paid for them. I’m not completely happy though. I have an extremely powerful prescription, and I think Wal-Mart has some problems servicing people at the extreme end of the spectrum, like me.
Still, I practically live off Wal-Mart. Oil change? $17. New pair of surprisingly-high-quality dress pants? $16. 12-pack of soda? $1.84
There is a downside, I suppose. They built a Wal-Mart in my hometown when I was a teenager. Within two years, half the other businesses in town folded. It didn’t bother me too much, though; the only people the owners of those other places ever hired were their own kids and their kid’s best friend. Trying to find a job as a teen there was hell.
I got my glasses from Wal-Mart too. I can’t remember now, but they were about $80, too. Love it. Just one pair, though.
Except one thing. My vision is SO BAD that they didn’t have glass thick enough there in the lab, and had to send them out. So instead of an hour, I had to wait two weeks. Stupid eyes.
Although night-vision enabled lenses would be cool, I opted not to get that feature. The frames, not the lenses, were what made the glasses so pricey. I did get the anti-glare coating, though.
Just being sarcastic:). Believe me, I have no trouble believing the cost of the glasses after trying to buy a pair in NYC. I wasn’t about to spend $300 on a pair of Gucci frames, but it was hard to find anything for much less.
Speaking of prescriptions, though, has anyone had their eyesight improve between visits? My right eye stayed the same, but my left eye improved. My contacts are -2.75, and the prescription for my glasses yesterday were -2.50. It kinda didn’t make much sense to me.
I just got a pair at Target and was quite happy with the price. $179 – but I need bifocals with correction for astigmatism and prefer the progressive lenses. These were also the ultralight lenses (and believe me, I need them).
A combination like this would be near to $300 anywhere else.
But I do a lot of shopping at Wal-Mart. It’s right next door to me.
avabeth, my prescription went down a notch last time too. I think it didn’t get better so much as I was kind of in between, and could go with either. Since I do mostly close-up work, I went with the lower prescription. He gave me a choice though, since previously I had the same prescription for both eyes and that’s convenient sometimes (not having to worry about an even supply of right and left contacts- I always end up uneven by tearing one). Actually, I think my prescription is the same as yours!
Going with the higher prescription can give me headaches when I do lots of close work, with the lower sometimes I can’t see far things quite as clearly, but the difference is really small.
Yikes. My glasses were. . . $180, I think. From Wal-mart, too. That was about a year and a half ago. I need to buy some new ones. I started buying my contacts there after I found out they were $15/box instead of the $25/box I was paying to my optometrist.
My last pair of glasses are from United Optical. Eye exam, lenses, and flexible frames were a total of just over $100. Juanita, they have two Baltimore locations, one in Belvedere Square and the other on West Saratoga.
It’s funny you should mention Belvedere Square because I’ll be heading there this weekend. It’s located right across the street from the Senator theatre (historical theatre in Baltimore that’s been featured in a couple of John Waters’ flicks). It’s gone through a revitalization of sorts and the grand reopening is this weekend.
I’ll be sure to check out United Optical’s frame selection.
Another thing to cheer Wal-Mart for is that they won their longstanding battle against Blockbuster Video in regards to DVD pricing. BV wanted new release DVD’s to be priced at a premium, ala new VHS releases, with prices starting at $70. WM, otoh, wants to sell as many as they can so they demanded that DVD’s be priced to sell, new release or not.
The studios dithered for a while, but came to their senses when they saw the following numbers:
Given that Wal-Mart sells more entertainment related goods than BV (especially if you include tie-ins like toys, music, and video games), the studios capitulated, thereby pissing BV off. WTG Wal-Mart! :thumbs up:
My new glasses at Walmart were $180, but only $50 of that was the frame. My eyes are so bad that in order to not have Coke-bottle lenses I have to get ultralights, and even then they’re about the same thickness as normal people’s non-ultralight lenses. That ups the price quite a bit.
I do a lot of shopping at Walmart. The clothes aren’t all that bad (well, their “teen” clothes are pieces of crap that fall apart, but their “grownup” clothes are ok), and the Super Walmart was the cheapest and easiest place to do all my grocery shopping when I lived in the dorm. I don’t get my oil changed at the one closest to me anymore, though, because they take too long and somehow managed to make my battery go dead last time I took it in to them.