To think nowadays you need a mortgage if you need glasses?

Thank you.

Hi- I’ve checked and actually it seems that 1.74 is an upgrade so maybe a bit thinner? I never wear them for long to notice the weight, but the vision is excellent

That’s really not that expensive tbh. Not for what is essentially healthcare.

The myopia tax is real! The £1000s I have had to spend on glasses over the years which my 20/20 vision friends have never even considered.

He had astigmatism also

Like hearing aids, glasses are vastly overpriced, and as they are essential people will pay whatever is asked

Lovely service or not it’s not worth being overcharged for. This sort of loyalty is misplaced.

What index lenses did you get? Do you not find them very heavy? I have a very similar prescription but normally wear rgp lenses and very rarely wear my glasses outside. I got the glasses that become sunglasses from asda which I sometimes wear out.

DH gets his eyes tested with the prescription (they have to give it to you) and gets them online from Glasses Direct.

Yeah, mine are about the same, if not more.

I'd be non-functioning without mine though, so it's a necessary expense. I do have savings specifically for my glasses though, so it's not such a horror when I need new ones.

I think my optician is at the pricier end though... It's a family run business, and I've been going there since I was 6 years old. It's a lovely, friendly service. I wouldn't go anywhere else.

That’s still a very simple prescription - when you add in astigmatism and other issues it all becomes much more complicated.

Using yourPD reading. You can ask the optician for it when you get your eye test although I don't know why they don't put it as standard on prescription

After years of expensive varifocals and even more expensive and shit toric multifocal contact lenses I went to Czek Republic to a very good clinic and got multi distance lense implants. Like the cataract op but with a fancy lense. I am now glasses free at all distances. Best money I ever spent and was less than one third of the prices in UK. It will pay for itself in 3 years compared to what I was spending on glasses and contacts.
I still cant get over the novelty of having good eysight with no faffing.

Most places online send you a little plastic thing to measure pupil distance etc. The same one that’s used in high street opticians.

I posted up thread that I now get my specs from Vooglam (which I was thought was dodgy for ages after lots of pop up ads showing dirt cheap frames - but it’s not!).

I ordered two new pairs on Friday with thinning and a progressive -6.5 prescription.

Paid for quicker delivery instead of the free one (£14) and my glasses arrived yesterday from China via DHL and my 2 pairs came to £160.

I had an eye test and glasses from Specsavers last year. Didn’t have much choice of frames, took 9 days to get them after spending 40 minutes waiting for my appointment and cost £140 for one pair.

Online opticians are the way forward for me cos they tend to have much more choice, cheaper and more convenient. Think I’ll only go to high street opticians for eye tests from now on.

Not true - my prescription and online purchase in the picture- I did not go for lense thinning as I only wear them around the house

How do they fit them, check the centre of the glasses is in the right place etc?

Since when? My ex husband has -11 and -12 eyes. He's been able to get glasses with ultra thinned frames etc online

This ONLY works if you have bog standard, low strength glasses. It does not work with high prescriptions, thinning etc.

I admire your passion and of course that’s your experience and of course if it’s affordable and not causing you issues then there is no drama at all in paying good money every two years for glasses that you are 100% confident in.

I can tell you firsthand my experience and you can get glasses just as robust as you can on the High St through an online company. And you can save at least 50%. If they don’t work correctly you can send them back and with some providers you can try on multiple pairs and send them back. Of course the £29 pears are limited in frame choice but the lenses are the same and where they manufactured them are probably the same as where many of the High St companies manufacture theirs.

So if Money is tight of course there are ways of saving hundreds of pounds, otherwise buy them from wherever you want. At the end of the day if you have a prescription that’s all it is it’s a lens cut in a certain way to meet the prescription. It’s all done by Computers. I’ve bought a number of glasses from the Internet and never had a single problem, yet my friend bought some from the High St and they didn’t work properly and they had to go back. Everybody’s experience is different. It works for me and I’ve saved thousands of pounds over the years.

I’m not a full-time glasses wearer but I do need glasses to drive and different glasses to use a computer and a different pair to watch TV but generally around the house and out and about I don’t use glasses. I just keep a pair in he car, a pair near the TV and a pair by the computer (monitor glasses that have the near addition and help face out the blue lights).

I cottoned on quite a few years ago to just buy glasses off the Internet. There are various sites that all offer frames and all the extra bits and bobs for a fraction of the price it cost costs on the High St. Combine this with voucher codes like with Coupert and other useful tools that search for all the offers available at one time and you could really save hundreds of pounds.

I can’t quote figures as I haven’t bought a pair for almost 2 years but I basically bought three different pairs of glasses for three different uses a couple of years ago and in total it came to less than £130 for three pairs of glasses.

I’ve literally just had my most recent eye test so I have my new prescription and they tried to sell me a pair of glasses for over £450. In the meantime I will be using my sunglasses, but I’ve checked Online and I can cut that cost in half easily. It’s time to think differently about how and where you source your glasses.

i’ve also found if your prescription change is very slightly you can usually get away with your old prescription for sometime. Obviously if you start to get headache headaches or feel more tired than usual in the brain, then it is probably time to change the glasses. Just because you prescription has changed the smidge doesn’t mean you need to change your glasses every single time. I’m personally convinced that the opticians purposely tweak your sight every visit by a small amount to make you feel like you need a new pair when in fact you probably don’t.

Exactly. My DH's 2 pairs of glasses with all the bells and whistles cost £600 (for the 2 pairs) from Specsavers, with the lens thinning, tints, scratch protection, balancing lens, and all that jazz, but we would rather pay this - as you say, to protect his eyesight, as it is extremely precious, and vulnerable, and tricky, and he needs everything we get for him. He doesn't have it all because he's a fragile, entitled princess, he is wearing them all the time, 7 days a week, every waking hour, and they have to be comfortable and light and perfect for his eyes.

If other people want to get glasses for 10 times less money from some random internet company, and/or have glasses that are like jam jar bottoms then crack on. I'm not having my husband doing this. As you say, people spend £1500 on a mobile phone, and £500 on a handbag, and multiple 100s and 1000s on general crap they don't need but do WANT... So we spend £500 or £600 every 2 years on DH's eyesight. So what? Like fuck are we having £29 pairs off the internet, no WAY will they be any good for my DH's eyesight.

It does seem a lot when you have to pay out that kind of £ but I would rather pay to protect my eye sight.

Some people pay similar amonts just for branded clothes dress / coat/ shoes etc and think nothing of it.

My last pair was dirt cheap, £90 (maybe a bit more but deffo under £100). I picked cheapest frame, £50 as I got fed up after losing two pairs of stupidly expensive glasses on holiday... Eye test was £29. So not that massively expensive - but I did go to my favourite shop before and was quoted £400 for a pair of glasses.

Yup! Just got my first pair of varifocals. The lenses alone (thinned) were £350. That's without frames and the cost of the test.

I had LASIK surgery 22 years ago after suffering contact lenses for years. Best £1000 I’ve ever spent!