The optometrist recommended seamless bifocals. I have a very painful nerve condition in my face (atypical trigeminal neuralgia), so this is what I need with glasses: the lightest weight frames possible- known as ultra light- with the lightest weight lenses possible and automatically darkening lenses so I don’t need the weight of sunglasses. The cheapest frames brought the total to $250 on the site the insurance worked with.
The frames are $20 on the cheap site. Everything else in the cost is the lenses.
As for why I have to buy them online- I don’t want anyone touching my face unless it’s absolutely necessary. The exam was painful enough.
American for-profit healthcare is fucking awesome.
eyebuydirect. You’ll need to measure your pupillary distance if your prescription from the doctor doesn’t list it.
I bought glasses out of insurance from a company that I don’t think sells out of insurance glasses anymore. But it cost like $120 (getting glasses the normal way would’ve probably been a 4 digit number, so I consider $120 cheap for glassss), all I had to do was find my old prescription numbers then increase them by like 1 increment. Saved tons of money. Your eye doctor will refuse to tell you your prescription numbers if it’s been more than 1 year since your last appointment but there are ways to measure the lens curvature using light and shadows. You can’t get them any cheaper without becoming a glass blowing expert and doing it yourself, and you’d have to diy a lot of other far fetched stuff while you’re at it, so good luck with that
Get Kaiser Permanente!.. I got new $150 for my $20 copay, which I was told I didn’t need to pay!
Weeks later they started sending me daily reminders to pay my copay and the extra 100 I owed on the frame!
Surely I don’t understand healthcare.
Unfortunately, my wife, who’s insurance I am on, doesn’t get to choose policies. Also, nothing is in-network for Kaiser around here. We did have it when we lived in L.A. and my daughter was born in Providence St. Joseph in Burbank, which was a really nice hospital and they paid for it. But I’m in Indiana now. No Kaiser stuff here.
Her vision plan is called VSP and it clearly sucks. But again, no choice.
Well then you don’t have to put up with the daily Kaiser pay 5 bucks please.
Check out Firmoo, I’ve gotten really cheap prescription glasses on there multiple times.
Never heard of them. I’ll check them out. Thanks.
My issue is getting the examination. Let me know how to get that without insurance.
I wish I could. That was the one thing the insurance actually helped with.
I get mine at the vision center in Walmart every two years for around $110-150 without any insurance which gets me an eye exam, contact lens prescription, glasses prescription, and one trial pair of contacts. I believe they are all third party, optometrist-owned practices that just rent space in the buildings so YMMV.
If you have a membership, check out Costco. They often have really good prices on this sort of thing.
I tried bifocals, and they are just not for me. I work on a computer all day, and having to jog my head around in order to have appropriate focus sucks.
So … when I go to get an eye exam, I have them give me two prescriptions. One for distance (driving, movies, whatever), and another for about six inches past arm’s length - how far away my main monitor is. Then I get two pair of glasses online for ~$40 each, and a pair of distance sunglasses for $50.
I like the distance sunglasses better than transitions lenses, because they’re darker than the transitions would ever get. Adding other fancy coatings will certainly increase the price of the lenses, but I think I only did scratch resistant on my regular distance pair, since I’m not doing somersaults while on the computer.
This is what I did through Zenni as well. Only, I intend to get a third pair of glasses. The distance at which you read a computer screen compared to a physical book is very different.
Fub fact: they both cost $250
Very fub indeed
I got mine for $30, they can make them mute expensive, but for just glasses, it’s perfect.
I second this, but OP says they have special lens needs. That’s what stacks the price.
I got mine with their HD lenses, no-line bifocals with antiglare coating, and the total came to $135 shipped.
While my initial reaction to this was “wholly fuck that’s expensive” I realize that all those modifiers would make it close to a grand at a glasses shop.
I have had less than stellar results with Zenni, ymmv
I bought one pair from them and they were pretty crummy. Also getting the pupillary distance is tricky.
Measuring your own PD is ehhh. You can have the optometrist give you PD at your exam.
Good luck. Then the front of the store won’t get any business.
When I’ve gone to America’s Best for an eye exam, yeah, they were none too happy when I wouldn’t also buy glasses from them, but I got my prescriptions to go. Fuck em. Didn’t have a single problem with the optometrist office in the Target. I’m also pretty sure that the optometry part and the retail frames and lenses part of these stores are at least somewhat separate from each other, business-wise.
The down side of the online “cheap glasses” places is that when your frames show up all bent and twisted, you have to adjust them yourself, and if there’s a problem with the lenses, that’s a whole thing. Buying from a storefront, they’ll handle all that for you. I’m capable of running my plastic frames under hot water to straighten them out and adjust them to my crooked head.
So far my $30 glasses is going strong for 5 years now.
When I got LASIK I wasn’t allowed to wear contacts for a few weeks before the surgery. I bought the cheapest pair of glasses from Zenni. I had new glasses for $17 + $10 shipping.
If I had to do it again I would have my IPD measured by a proper optometrist first. I just guessed at it and got ones a little too small, so they had a kind of fisheye effect.
Still, for <$30 it was a great bargain
I used them and they were great good-enough glasses.
I have bought at least 10 pair from Zenni optical and they were just fine.
I buy from glassesshop, I think the cheapest pair is $50 for frame and lenses. I went all in on the thinnest lenses and transitions, I think it was $150.
Target optical does vision tests for $75 IIRC, and I go there to get a prescription that I give to glassesshop and pick up a cheap pair and a nicer pair. Still not free.99, but much cheaper than other routes without insurance.
Have you tried Zenni?
I have not. I’ll chedk them out. Thanks.
No problem. I’ve been using their glasses for years now and haven’t had any problems with them. I only really replace them when I get a new script with changes in my vision.
I always go for sprung hinges with Zenni. I’ve never need to tighten the screws with those.
Used them for years with no issue and get lots of pairs for distance, reading, daytime driving (polarized sunglasses bifocals so no glare and I can see the instruments), etc.
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I’ve had good luck with them over 3 pairs. I get the exam at Costco and then buy from Zenni. The most expensive pair so far has been $108 for progressives with anti-glare etc although that was during a sale. They are better quality and have lasted longer than almost anything I’ve got from the traditional optometrists places, even when I’ve gone higher end. Even better, you can select the distance for computer, mid or distance - I wear one of 4 pairs depending on what I’m doing - AND they don’t check your prescription so you can use an old one if you know that works for you.
Ain’t never going back.
Fucking Stanton and Warby Parker advertised $45 for 2 pairs… But you can only actually get that price if you don’t actually need lenses. These two (and probably all others advertising similar prices) are just fucking scams.
Costco is pretty good, my glasses were like $105 or $110 and they’re perfectly fine for me
I think Costco glasses are a good deal, even if you have to buy a one-year membership to get them. Don’t know if they’re available online, but don’t you want to try glasses on in person to make sure they fit and are comfortable?
No Costco around here unfortunately. I don’t want any glasses touching me unless they are the ultra lightweight ones. They weren’t available at the optometrist, which is who my insurance covered.
Just checked, it looks like you can buy Costco frames online, I got my glasses in the physical store and they were super cheap (like ~$60 for the lenses and ~$40 for the frames), it came out a bit over $100, I highly recommend.
Thanks.
I am from cheap part of Europe. While you can get glasses for 20 Euros, with those kind of requrements 250 sounds about the same.
I guess some countries might get prescription, but I doubt “light frame and light lenses with darkening” would qualify.
Basically, what I have found out since I posted this is that glasses need to be cheaper everywhere.
Zenioptical it’s like 75 for every option and I wear them more than the glasses I paid hundreds for
