Less than a year ago, Denny and I went to a Dayton area chain retailer for an exam and new glasses. The retailer had a two for one price deal going so we each got our two pairs; I went with glasses and prescription sunglasses, Denny got two pairs of reading glasses because that's all he needs glasses for.
The minute we hit the street while I was wearing my new sunglasses I knew they were wrong because signs were blurry to me, so we circled the block and turned in the sunglasses to be fixed. My driving/reading glasses had to be specially ground because of the frame style I had chosen, so they weren't available to check, but the optometrist re-examined my eyes and called in the change to the lens shops. Okay.
I have never been happy with either set of glasses; I have to tip my chin down a bit to see distant objects more clearly, which is annoying when I'm driving. So when I saw two separate bloggers writing about their good experience with online eyeglass dispenser Zenni Optical, I said what the heck and decided to give them a try.
Ordering is simple, you simply need your eyeglass prescription from your optometrist, making sure the pupillary distance is written on it or requesting that it be noted on the prescription. The Zenni Optical website explains why this is necessary for ordering your glasses and takes you step by step in ordering correctly. What I appreciated was that the website has a specific list of frames that suit progressive lens, which was much of the problem with my chain retailer glasses. The frames I chose there were simply too small for progressive lens.
The chain retail glasses were over $300 a pair for a set of plastic frames and plastic progressive focus lens. The Zenni Optical glasses have plastic frames, plastic progressive lens, anti-glare coating and are photochromatic (go from clear to dark outdoors) plus I added a pair of sunglass clip-ons and the price for all that plus shipping was $91.85. And I can see better than I have in two years.
And for those that say it is cheaper to buy them in Mexico--I bought photochromatic, progressive glasses there three years ago and they were half again as expensive as my new glasses. Although we had more fun in Mexico!
And that's today's way of saving money on the road.
2 comments:
Argh - I hate paying so much for nice glasses and them being so, so wrong. Thanks for the tip tho'.
Our eye doctor was incredibly insistent that we only buy our contacts from him but I told him no because he was 4x the price of 1-800 Contacts. He was extremely insulted and almost fired us as customers but I can't afford his prices.
We liked him before that and now we deal with a different doctor.
I have heard of this online Optical site before and personally know people who have had very positive results, even ordering from Canada. I keep thinking I should give them a try.
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