Just paid £400 for new glasses ouch!

[ChiaraRimini]

My old frames were on their last legs so I went to high street optician for 2 for 1 deal.
Thought I could get away with single vision lenses so not too expensive.
WRONG!
I need varifocals. £119 for ones that weren't shit.
The only frames that suited me and seemed solid were the £169 designer ones.
Anti reflective coating £30
Got upsold Polaroid lenses on second pair (sunnies) as safer for driving £60
And they charged me £20 for the eye test.
£400.
.
.
Should have gone to Specsavers I know.
(Spoiler alert: this was Specsavers)

Last time it was £330 for two pairs at Boots! I was in shock! Have I been totally done over? I wear them every day. I could have done without the bill but will just have to live with it I guess

Oh yes, I'm feeling your pain. I would never spend that sort of money on myself - can't remember the last time I bought a decent handbag or winter coat! I had initially rejected contact lenses as expensive but with hindsight...

Same here. Get BOGOF deals but they are still very expensive. Now they even come as plastic. Lighter, i guess, but a lot of £££.

Ouch. They saw you coming, you've taken every useless extra going. Can you cancel or downgrade all the extras?

And practically all the frames in Specsavers are "designer". Mine are apparently by Kylie. They cost £60.

Forgot to add that mine came in a £350. My employer paid for my sight test which took a minuscule fraction of the bill... Vision Express, not Specsavers.

You shouldn't have been charged for the eye test... (there's often vouchers online but I booked an eye test and a contact trail the other day and they didn't ask for payment for the eye test at all.

Why? Get the prescription and shop around. Unless you can afford it and are happy with them in which case that's fine.

No you haven't been done. You can spend £400 on the varifocal alone. I have now worked in optics for 7 years, and the amount of people, that live abroad and come to England and get their glass is amazing. They tell me England is a lot cheaper then in Europe. Just think of as 55p per day not a £400 lump sum.

Specsavers are notorious for this, they have all the big signs saying youre getting a bargain but they are ridiculously expensive.

If the opportunity to cancel is there, then go to a small independant opticians or one of e supermarkets, asda, tesco and superdrug do the same frames but the lenses and frames are much much cheaper.

I stopped shopping at high street opticians for my glasses for this very reason - far too expensive and loads of extra costs like lens coating which they swore blind was essential.

Now I get a test and prescription from specsavers and buy my glasses online from glasses direct- have saved absolutely loads of money and always loved the glasses.

I use Glasses Direct on line. Always been oK.You have the eye test done at whatever optician you choose and upload the prescription.

I sympathise.

I've just paid £120 for DD's and that's with her NHS voucher. We went to Tesco, where we always go but they've now been taken over by Vision Express. The cheapest frames were £59, her voucher is worth £35.50

I've always let her pick which frames she likes best and never pushed her towards the cheaper ones but even with the designer frames she sometimes picked I never paid more than £55 plus her voucher when they were Tesco.

I was going to take her to Specsavers for her next eye test but now I'm not sure. Does anyone know anywhere cheap? I will struggle to find £££ every six months and her prescription is changing constantly.

I had pretty much the same experience earlier this year. That was at an independent opticians. I had already chosen my frames, and chose really nice ones as I wear them all day every day. Then I got the varifocal diagnosis.

Apparently Asda do varifocals for £45!

Specsavers have a decent range covered by the nhs voucher , and they have a free eye test voucher on their website. I dont have an nhs certificate so was putting off going due to the cost of glasses, but i picked a pair for £69 and got a 2nd pair free (I chose sunglasses). The eye test was free with their voucher.

So you got 2 pairs of varifocaks for £400 including frames?! That's really not so bad.....ex independent optician here and our 'not shit' lenses used to start at £230 for one pair. No frames. Top end lenses anything up to £500 / £600 for one pair depending on coatings and prescription. You did okay! 😀

Yep, it's horribly expensive.
But we too arrange opticians appointments, and new glasses for DH and DS2 in the UK because it is sooo much cheeper than buying them locally. As in we spend half the amount on getting 2 pairs of glasses in the UK than we did getting DS's first pair locally - that us 4x the cost per pair to get here. And yes, we tell them we are not entitled to NHS free testing and contributiion to frames, and its still a quarter of the price.
It doesnt stop my eyes watering as we hand over the credit card for 4x eyes tests, 2 pairs of glasses for DS, and a pair of glasses and pair of sunglasses for DH.

Hope your glasses bring you many wears of joy.

Asda all the way. This is the second time in two years that I have used them. I’m as blind as a bat (-9) not a varifocals wearer so my lenses are thinned. I think they may be thinner than VE’s thins.
For two pairs of thinned glasses, I paid something like £110 for both (think it may be £120 now). For one pair of thinned glasses and a pair of prescription sunglasses, I spent £179 this summer.
I used to spend £400 in VE.

Definitely try Asda. I have poor vision (-10) and astigmatism. Could easily spend £300 on one pair of glasses and only £20 would be on the cheapest cheapest frames I could find.

I got thinned lens, designer frames and the same again in sunglasses at Asda for around £170. I was gobsmacked.

DH and I both got new glasses last week for the combined grand total of £98! (Specsavers). I chose cheap and cheerful £45 frames, he chose expensive frames but got huge discount and free eye test as he's a lensmail customer, then just had to pay for my eye test. Didn't go for any upsell on lens coatings etc.

I feel for you having to have varifocals as that obvs pushes the price up!

Mine were 400€ on BOGOF. But 'good' désigner ones, which I really love. My last pair I kept for 7 years, and cost about as much. I justify it by working out the cost per wear! It's less than 20p per day

Go to Asda
The price you see for the frames is the price you pay. It includes varifocals, tints, coatings, thin lenses

I got new specs last week and paid a similar amount, but, as someone upthread mentioned, when you work out the cost per day over the year/s it doesn’t sting quite so much.

I got a pair of designer glasses I'd been quoted over £400 for in boots for £120 online from an American website. I think I had to pay some duty (think around £20), and I'm sure I went for moderate extras when it came to lenses compared to what boots were quoting for. Still a significant saving, will def never buy from the high st again.

My frameless frame (so 2 arms and the tiny bridge bit over the nose) cost me £180 last year - but I'm vain so I stumped up.

This year I managed to ruin the anti glare coating by getting them wet in hot shower water- it completely crazed the coating beyond repair.

I need varifocals - £200 at my opticians for the ones recommended for new vari beginners. They do come with the anti glare coating as standard though, with a 2 year guarantee this time, so no worries about ruining the coating again.

Plus £120 because I get my lenses thinned so they aren't heavy on my face.

So £320 for me this year!

My specs - varifocals, photosensitive, etc. - are my most expensive possession apart from house and car. What's more, my sight is changing so I've had two pairs in four years.

Boots are good. I dont think 400 is too bad

spend it on gin