Saved a ton of $ on eyeglasses! Since everyone might not check out the Money Matters Section on a regular basis, I figured I'd post this here. I listen to Clark Howard whenever he's on the radio, now he has a TV show on HLN on the weekend. For anyone who doesn't know who he is, he gives tips on ways to save $, get out of debt; and get the best deals in general on all sorts of items. He points out scams and businesses that fail to deliver everything they promise. A few weeks back, Clark was talking about eyeglasses (prescription eyeglasses) and how much we pay for them - wasting money unnecessarilly. He mentioned a study done where the same prescription was taken to a local optician, one of the 1 hour optical places, and to a web based eyeglass supplier to be filled - then all three pairs were brought to an independant optican to be checked - the result - the web based inexpensive glasses were the closest to the Rx as written by the eye doctor! Clark said he himself uses Zenni Optical www.zennioptical.com Their glasses start at just 8.95 per pair and have a flat fee of 4.95 s&h no matter how many pair you order. I was due for new frames, I hate the ones I have - too heavy and to be honest, almost every pair of glasses I've tried on and ordered at the eye doc in the past 30 years have dissapointed me when I started wearing them. So, I figured if I ordered them without being aboe to try them on I stood as good of a chance at liking them once I received them. Well, I ordered them on December 16 - the website had a ton of choices - thousands if you break them down to frame color. I sat down with a copy of my Rx (called my docs office for the PD (pupillary distance) which wasn't on my written Rx - it took them about 10 seconds to look it up for me. I entered my Rx on line and made my choices - Sunglasses (you have a choice of what color tint you want - gray/brown/purple/blue etc. . .and how much tint you want I chose gray and the darkest amount - 80% as I'm outside a lot) I didn't choose the anti-reflection option for any of my glasses. . .The sunglasses - black frame with purple accents on top and sides- were 12.95 The pair w/ silver frames were 12.95 The Black stainless steel with/ red accents on the sides - half rims frames were 15.95 The titanium full fims were 15.95 and the Amber tottoise pair were 19.00 Subtotal 76.80 shipping 4.95 (came priority mail USPS) totalled 81.75!!! Sunglasses - 1/2 rim black with red accents The glasses I had prior from my eye doctor - my sunglasses were 125.00 and my titanium with the lenses that get darker when you go outside -but not dark enough were 375.00! The glasses from Zenni come in cases - not anything to rave over, but they do the job. Each contains a generously sized cleaning cloth. I am so impressed! I originally figured that out of the 5 I would like at least 1, maybe 2 pair, but honestly, I really like them all. Zenni optical is well worth considering giving a shot just to see if you would like to utilize them in the future if you have children, need a back up pair of glasses, or just want some fun interesting frames for occasions, but know they wouldn't go with everything and don't want to take an expensive plunge for the sake of fashion, especially during this economy. If I could have had a few pair of different frames to choose from daily when I was a kid, I might not have hated wearing glasses so much!
I'll have to check it out to see if I can order ones without a prescription. I need some sunglasses! The $5 Walmart ones ain't cutting it.
I am so gonna order me some glasses from there! I have wanted prescription sunglasses for so long but just couldn't bring myself to spend the money. Thanks for this great link!
I would be interested in 4042 webbie's experience. He was taking the plunge in earl 2008. see: http://www.4042.com/4042forums/showthread.php?t=15064&highlight=clark+howard&page=3
