Save on Glasses

[Beaker]

I just got back from the eye doctor, who gave me a new prescription and an unexpected bit of cash saving advice. I think this would help anyone who needs a different prescription in each eye. In my particular case it's +2.5 diopter in the left eye, and +1.5 right. I also need a bit of prism correction.

The doc told me I could go get glasses made, but it would cost quite a bit. The cheaper option is go somewhere that has a big bin of cheap reading glasses - WalMart, Costco, etc. Find two pairs of glasses with the same frames, one pair that has correction for the left eye (+2.5 diopter in my case) and one with the prescription for the right eye (+1.5 for me). Then swap the appropriate lenses. Total cost: $10 or less.

I don't think this would work if you a lot of astigmatism, or a negative diopter prescription. It also doesn't include the prism correction, but in a lot of cases your eyes can compensate over time (eyeball badassity!) But I think you could give it a try by just putting on the glasses and closing one eye at a time.

[AlexK]

Another cheap option is Zenni optical. I just received my new glasses from zennioptical.com, two pairs of prescription glasses for $27 incl shipping. The frames seems really nice. The anti-reflective coating is not nearly as good as my old glasses but on those glasses the extra charge for just the coating was $80!

[ketchup]

A friend at work did something similar to this recently.  She apparently has some sort of expensive-to-replace lenses.  Her frames broke, and she bought some cheap readers and found a place that would cut her old, scratched up, lenses to fit in the readers.  Total cost was something like $30 and it would have been several hundred dollars for her to get new frames and lenses.  I thought it was pretty nifty, as did my parents the optometrists (mostly they were impressed she found somewhere willing to fit the old lenses).

[shedinator]

Another cheap option is Zenni optical. I just received my new glasses from zennioptical.com, two pairs of prescription glasses for $27 incl shipping. The frames seems really nice. The anti-reflective coating is not nearly as good as my old glasses but on those glasses the extra charge for just the coating was $80!

+1
I have a fixed annual benefit amount for vision expenses. Zenni let me get a pair of specs, a backup pair of specs, and a pair of prescription shades, all with oliophobic/anti-reflective coding, for less than a hundred bucks. If for some reason every single pair were to break at once, I could replace them all and still have benefit to spare.