I am going to Sears Optical next week to get sorely needed new glasses - or maybe contacts. How much money should I bring with me? An eye exam would probably be a good idea. I don’t have astigmatism or anything; I’m just a straight-up blurry-sighted Montreal girl.
I have done some of my own digging online; but everyone is all cagey about how much it will cost me. I don’t want to walk in there, only to leave without anything because I can’t afford it.
Can anyone give me a rough estimate?
Expect to pay anywhere from 100(if you want some fugly ass glasses) to 500 dollars for a pair of glasses. My personal ones usually run around 300. I get nice frames with polycarbonate lenses(cause I almost always get rimless frames).
You might consider some of the online places. You can get your perscription and frame sizes then send it off to some online website*. There is an incredible cost savings.
I just got new contacts. It was $50 for two boxes, and I got six pairs in each box. They’re just your basic straight-up blurry-sight correcting contacts.
O2 Optix is the brand.
One of the online places requires you to join their ‘club’ which costs (IIRC) $50 or $75 a year, so any savings are negated by that, depending on how expensive your presription turns out to be.
I used to buy mine from 1-800-CONTACTS, but I can get mine for pretty much the same price from my eye doctor, and don’t have to pay for shipping.
Right now, I can afford $300 for the whole thing. I think I might wait a few weeks until I can scrape together another $200 so that I don’t have to settle for something low-end.
What the exam will cost? They should tell you that much.
My insurance covers it partially, but I honestly can’t remember what that cost. My eye doctor will fill a prescription without an exam every two years. After two years, he will require an exam to see of anything has changed.
Mine are disposables, and are really comfortable. I can even sleep in them.
If you’ve never worn contacts before, they’ll take some getting used to. It’s a big ‘YMMV’ thing with the different solutions and seemingly millions of brands of contacts on the market. They might let you test a couple different types before making you buy a whole set.
Glasses are insanely expensive. You really should go ahead and get something decent so they don’t break the first time you drop them. My daughter has a really funky prescription, and to get the lenses that aren’t really thick costs an arm and a leg.
And when you throw in the designer frame factor, the price goes up even more.
My glasses would have cost me over £100 if I hadn’t been a student at the time. My contacts cost £17 a month, but I have astigmatism.
You won’t be walking out with them for starters. They’ll have to get the lenses ground which can take a few days to a week. Don’t go to a one-hour place; quality isn’t as good.
Unless you absolutely must have the top-end designer frames or your eyes need serious correction, I doubt you’ll have to spend more than $300 and probably less.
You don’t have to buy the frames at Sears. You can shop around other places for frames and take them to Sears. You can also get the frame model and size info from them and get Sears to order, possibly cheaper. Mind you, I have a gorgeous pair that I found at Sears of all places and got frames and lenses for $250. on sale.
Used to be in Ontario that if you went to an optometrist who also dispensed glasses that the optometrist couldn’t charge you more than cost price for frames. Not sure if that’s still the case but if so, it meant you could buy high-end frames for much less. You might want to call a couple to see if it’s still the case.
My husband’s glasses rarely cost more than $100. Mine are closer to $500. He’s got a little bit of blurriness at night when he drives and he wears them when he goes to the movies. I’ve got terrible vision (I can see clearly to about 6 inches, extremely nearsighted), and my prescription is so strong I have to get the best lenses available (extra-thin, poly carbonate, beveled edges) plus I have astigmatism, which usually adds a few bucks to the order.
You won’t be able to get new glasses without a current (two years old or less) prescription. In the US, it’s the law, apparently.
I just went and got new glasses last week. I had an eye exam at an optometrist’s office, where the frames ranged from about $135 (low end) to $300+ (designer). I got a written prescription and took it to Sweep Optical, a “division of Laurel Hill Center, a non-profit organization providing nationally-recognized, recovery-focused rehabilitation services to 500 adults with mental illnesses each year” according to their website. Their frames range from $20 (low end) to $75 (designer) with single vision lenses running about $20-40. I have a slight astigmatism and my Rx was $39 and change. Their frame selection isn’t spectacular, and their designer frames are Celine Dion rather than Gucci, but I got a perfect set of frames that suits me very nicely–way cooler than my current specs–for $8.39 out of pocket. Had I bought them at the optometrist it would have cost me a minimum of about $120 out of pocket. A friend with no insurance at all bought a new set of specs for $40 flat, frames and lenses.
Sweep Optical is local to Oregon and Iowa, but maybe there’s something similar in your area? I thought it was a way 
fund raising business.
I paid $250 for a pair of glasses with me providing the frames. But I have a prism in one eye and that adds a lot to what it cost, since they have to grind it to order instead of taking it off the shelf. In fact my ophthalmologist recommended this place specially for the prism (Marer on Cote des Neiges, if you are interested–this is not an endorsement). The frames they were selling looked pricey and I would advise buying them elsewhere.
Perhaps I should have mentioned that I MUST go to Sears Optical because I have to put this on my plastic and pay it off when I get my insurance cheque. I don’t have any credit card other than a Sears card.
I think I might get the contacts (which are way cheaper) now and put them on my card, then get new glasses in a couple of weeks when I will have more cash.
If its been more than two years since you last had the eyes checked then your gonna have to get a new perscription.
Declan
A month ago my wife and I had our eyes examined at Wal-Mart, while her sister went to Sears for her son and herself. The exams were around US$65 or so each.
My SIL was able to get both sets of glasses for ~US$600 from Sears, and they are decent looking frames.
My wife and I went to Pearl Vision for the glasses, and ours were substantially more expensive, probably because I went for the thinnest lightest titanium rimless glasses with all of the fancy coatings and whatnot. They look good, but cost around US$500.
Good luck!
Ballpark on an eye exam (which is a good idea not just for an up-to-date prescription, but to check for things like glaucoma) is about $100. But I assume that most places have a package deal for exam plus glasses.
At the optometrist I pay $140 for six months’ worth of contacts, and pay about $90 to get them on-line.
It’s been quite a few years since I bought glasses, and even then they were $300.
Wow, I’m getting off cheap… And this is without insurance - I’m a plain ol’ “cash” customer for optical.
Eye exam by an opthalmologist who was intrigued by a healed-up hole in my retina and took a lot of time looking at it in San Francisco was $89.
Titanium frameless glasses with high-index poloycarb lenses were $164 at Costco. Half of that is the frameless frames (huh??) and the rest is the lenses, edge polish and anti-glare treatment. For an additional $73, I got “ugly-ass” regular frames as a backup pair.
I’d looked at Pearle just this past Saturday, and they were stupid expensive. Their frameless frames alone were more than the two pair of complete glasses at Costco, and to that, I’d still have to add lenses and wind up with only one pair.
I’ve personally found it depends on your prescription. The worse my eyes have gotten, the higher cost of the lenses.
I paid $200 out of pocket three years ago for frames and lenses. That was after insurance picked up some of my costs. I need new ones and I’m dreading it.
The reading glasses I’m using to type this cost £0.99 brand new, sans prescription, including a hard case. Same with my spare pair. Both were bought off-the-shelf at a discount opticians (Spectacle Warehouse, I think).
I used to need prescription glasses until I was in my late twenties - myopia that cleared itself up - and they cost one helluva a lot more, of course.
I dunno about Montreal and Sears, but here in the USA, LensCrafters will give you a discount (30% off of lenses, IIRC) for being a AAA member. If you’re a CAA member, call em up and see if you can get a similar discount.
Good luck and welcome to the world of straight-up blurry-sighted people.
You absolutely should get an eye exam (don’t know how much they cost), as there’s no point shelling out hundreds to correct your vision to an old prescription. Due to severe myopia and some astigmatism, my optometrist strongly recommends I let his office handle my prescription. A sturdy set of thin, light frames, high-index glass, a few coatings and some custom sunglass clipons (never going to be able to wear any otherwise), and I leave something like $800 lighter.
OTOH, my brother and my dad have way more reasonable prescriptions, and last month got a pair each at a regular chain under their “Buy 1 get 1 free” policy for under 500 combined.
Checking if they give discounts is a really good idea… for something like CAA, you might be able to get more of a discount than the actual membership costs you.
Just to add to my earlier post, my eye exams are included in the price of my contact lenses.