Eyeglasses and money?

It's time for Mr. middle age to get his first pair of bifocals. I am going to try the progressive lens.

I really like my eye doctor and the office etc but I was stopped dead in my tracks when I saw the price for frames in their eyeglass retail area.

I can swallow paying top dollar for the lenses... and will prefer to get the best optics but I picked up a plastic frame set (with out the lenses) and gasped to see the rascals were asking $249 for just the frames.

I stuttered at the sales person; "these things cost like $3... how can they be $249?"

I want to do the home town thing and all... but I'd simply be embarrassed for myself to pay that kind of money for plastic. I used to be given fancy Oakley sunglasses by a sales rep who kept a case of them in his car trunk... so I have very little value for what I regard as cheap plastic "stuff"... I've seen where it comes from.

What is a guy to do?

Yeah Mike, I've worn glasses for most of my life, but the switch to dual range was a bitter pill to swallow.
I went with the old standard format, because I do a lot of very small model work, and I wanted a larger focus area for that.
I'm due for an update, though, and I'm not looking forward to what it's going to cost.

Mooch has pair of goggles he'll sell ya.

Maybe you can do a retrofit?

I remember when I went progressive. It was hard to walk. Took me awhile to
get use to them.
I still don't like the head tilting that's just part of it.
The recliner and TV will give ya a workout.

mike_mccue


Will he throw in the straps?

For $2.86 Mooch will do anything.


(or will he?)

Hey Mike!!!!


I heard about this a few years back on a radio show with Clark Howard.... you get your prescription from the doctor, and check out this web site>>>>  http://www.zennioptical.com/ 

At the time I heard about this, these glasses are made over seas and are the same as you would buy here...just way cheaper.  The prices vary from $6 to $46. check it out... you might save some money.

Moshkiae


Hi,

I balked on bi-focals ... I have a regular pair and the computer glasses ... end of story!

I can't read the labels on the mixers without my readers. :-)

Guitarhacker


Hey Mike!!!!


I heard about this a few years back on a radio show with Clark Howard.... you get your prescription from the doctor, and check out this web site>>>>  http://www.zennioptical.com/ 

At the time I heard about this, these glasses are made over seas and are the same as you would buy here...just way cheaper.  The prices vary from $6 to $46. check it out... you might save some money.

Who needs glasses?

We need bigger letters!:-)

mike_mccue


It's time for Mr. middle age to get his first pair of bifocals. I am going to try the progressive lens.

I really like my eye doctor and the office etc but I was stopped dead in my tracks when I saw the price for frames in their eyeglass retail area.

I can swallow paying top dollar for the lenses... and will prefer to get the best optics but I picked up a plastic frame set (with out the lenses) and gasped to see the rascals were asking $249 for just the frames.

I stuttered at the sales person; "these things cost like $3... how can they be $249?"

I want to do the home town thing and all... but I'd simply be embarrassed for myself to pay that kind of money for plastic. I used to be given fancy Oakley sunglasses by a sales rep who kept a case of them in his car trunk... so I have very little value for what I regard as cheap plastic "stuff"... I've seen where it comes from.

What is a guy to do?

Well mike, I payed over $350.00 a pair for Ansi approved work glass's with a bifocal in them. Z87 frames and approved glass lenses with photochromatic dark tint. Many years of abuse and they're still not scratched. Plastic- polycarbonate lenses will be much more prone to scratching and you'll have to develop a habit of of knowing where they are at all times as well as when to put them in a case, not to bend over when they're in your shirt pocket, not to sit on them, or leave them somewhere.
What's a guy to do? Get good ones and take care of them. 

I buy the high dollar glasses too. About 15.00 at walgreens...then I hang them on the end of nose look over them  ( pretending ) they're fancy bifocals.

You must be careful ordering the progressive lenses. Explain the optician very carefully what kind of needs you have. They don't tell you the negative things. The progressivity of the lenses can be adjusted exactly according to your needs, which means they can be useless in some other task.

For example: I draw a lot. However, my 700 euro progressive glasses
turn a square paper into a sqewed square (like the "diamond" in playing cards) if you turn the paper a little. That makes drawing impossible with these glasses. Neither can I use them in computer work because the sharp focused area in close range is about 2-4 inches, five letter keys. You can't even read a CD cover without turning your head. ( You can get ones with a wider close focus, but you must know to order such - and pay a little more). 

My glasses are only good in car driving - I can see both the meters and the street very well - but I've never needed glasses when I drive. Also when working as an auctioneers assistant, the glasses are spot on for book keeping and following the audience.

Having discussed about this with many, I believe it's often better to have bifocal  for general use and unifocal (??? is that the word) for PC and reading.

 
Hi Mike, another middle-aged man here who's just been through the same process.
 
I've been lucky up until recently as I've never needed glasses, but over the last few years my distance vision has been deteriorating quite noticeably, so I went and got my eyes tested a couple of months ago.
 
I explained that I'd probably need them most for driving and watching TV, so they suggested a pair of glasses fitted with single lenses set to my 'distance' prescription.
 
Once I received them, I realised just how bad my eyesight had become - they were perfect.
 
However, there were immediate problems which I hadn't thought about being a first-time wearer - the major pain was that although they were perfect for driving 'outside' the car, the prescription blurred the instrument panel.
 
I went back to the opticians (Dolland & Aitcheson for UK members) and they immediately gave me a refund for that pair and offered to make me a pair of varifocals, which would include my (albeit very weak) reading prescription.
 
As far as prices go, they were running a buy one - get one free offer on frames so decided to get an extra pair of prescription sunglasses. The frames were £79 (approx US$125) so effectively I paid just under £40 for each one.
 
As Colin quite rightly says above - "you can't cut corners where your eyesight is concerned" - so I plumped for the £300 Nikon varifocal lenses for the normal glasses. The difference apparently is that the more expensive the lens, the greater the area which is actually effective. I had my sunglasses done with less expensive lenses because I wouldn't be using the 'reading' part of them very often - just the long distance and 'intermediate' (for reading the car instrument dials) parts of them.
 
They took a bit of getting used to but now I'm absolutely delighted; aside from the fact that the single lenses were useless for driving, it's so nice not having to keep taking them off to read or use the computer.
 
Cheap frames with quality lenses seems to be the way to go
 
 
 

Kalle Rantaaho


You must be careful ordering the progressive lenses. Explain the optician very carefully what kind of needs you have. They don't tell you the negative things. The progressivity of the lenses can be adjusted exactly according to your needs, which means they can be useless in some other task.

For example: I draw a lot. However, my 700 euro progressive glasses
turn a square paper into a sqewed square (like the "diamond" in playing cards) if you turn the paper a little. That makes drawing impossible with these glasses. Neither can I use them in computer work because the sharp focused area in close range is about 2-4 inches, five letter keys. You can't even read a CD cover without turning your head. ( You can get ones with a wider close focus, but you must know to order such - and pay a little more). 

My glasses are only good in car driving - I can see both the meters and the street very well - but I've never needed glasses when I drive. Also when working as an auctioneers assistant, the glasses are spot on for book keeping and following the audience.

Having discussed about this with many, I believe it's often better to have bifocal  for general use and unifocal (??? is that the word) for PC and reading.

Thanks very much for this info... it surely seems that no one at the glasses shops cares to tell you much about this.

It's weird... the liberal trade in guarantee they offer seems to allow them to adopt a passive sales buyer beware posture... You have to educate yourself and demand something suitable for your needs... while the vendors seem to default to the methodology of simply selling what is easy and seeing if you can accept that.

That's a weird way to distribute profit.... They make a whole bunch of it up front so that when the broken down system gets called... they can afford to start over and give you something else for *free*. hmmm. Seems weird and yet familiar.

I'm looking at total costs of $600 just to find out if something like you describe is going to happen.

I think I may do the discount shopping as recommended by some of the posters here.

best regards,
mike