How much for glasses? £500?

[DustyLee123]

I don’t wear glasses, so no idea how much they cost, but DH came home last week and said that he’d spent over £500 on a new pair. It seems extortionate to me, or is it normal?

Fuck me from where?!

I spent £100 and got two pairs - sunglasses and normal. £500 is extortionate

Quite normal as you start with the basic cost of the frame (say 100) then add lots of features onto the lenses - extra thin, anti-glare, anti-scratch, super lovely etc etc and hey presto it's now 500

That is expensive. Mine are usually around the £250 mark.

I think my last pair were £130 and I got a second pair half price.

It depends on the glasses?? As in does he need a very strong prescription/ special anti glare or scratch resistant coating??? These things all add up unfortunately. I brought my son new glasses for his 18th birthday.....£200 lighter now

It's really not normal.

I think that’s about normal.
My current pair cost about £400, 10 years ago. Frames were about £150, the rest lens and lens thinning.

I keep thinking I would like a new pair, but as prescription not really changed keep putting it off as every time I think I have £400-500+ spare, it’s needed on something else

Frames can be very expensive if you go designer
lenses
coatinhs plus a test can all add up

I have a complex prescription. £500 plus is not unusual for my glasses (not fancy frames, just very expensive lenses)

It depends, some people have a strong prescription and pay a lot for lens thinning. Also, there's more expensive lenses like varifocals.

Depends on your prescription. My lenses alone are about £800 or more, and then frames can easily add another £400+ (I have kept my current frames for almost 10 years as a result!!). NHS contributes £38 or something like that to mine, which doesn't really do much...

So if he has multifocals, for example, and needs the top of the range ones as his eyes are quite bad, then yes it could cost that much. Or if he needs them very thinned. Or if he chose very fancy designer frames. Etc.

Well obviously it will depend where you buy them and what lenses you need, but £500 is easily done. Especially with varifocals or thinner lenses, or designer frames. But I think even with the chain opticians, £500 wouldn’t be particularly remarkable for decent lenses and frames.

I pay that for 2 pairs and sunglasses - varifocals, anti-glare, thinned lenses. Would be v easy to spend that on a single pair with more expensive frames, too.

Even via the online super-cheap glasses retailers, my lenses come in at over £280, and that’s bargain basement stuff.

It depends on his prescription, and then choice of frames. With varifocals, astigmatism and wanting thin lenses rather than bottle-bottom lenses, I have paid at least that in recent years.

It depends on your prescription and the options you take.

I don't buy designer frames, but I do get the highest degree of thinning available on the lenses, which would otherwise be very very thick, and regularly spend around that.

It would be more for varifocals, too.

I wear complex varifocals with a very high prescription. I bought a pair last year with anti glare/anti scratch ect and the second best varifocal lenses and it was 260. His frames must have cost a fortune!

Yes normal. Mine are varifocal, anti scratch, anti shine, polarising. If i got a basic pair they would probably cost £150, but i want something decent that suits me and I can see out of, so I paid £800 as a special offer for a pair of glasses and a pair of sunnies.

They can be cheap or eye watering expensive.

My current pair cost about the same as your DH. £190 of it was the frame cost as I chose a nice designer frame.

The rest was the lenses. I have a complex prescription and get verifocals with a driving tint and I opt to get the more expensive super thin lenses. Otherwise the lenses are really thick and heavy.

Could I get cheaper? Yes, but mine will always be a lot more than the glasses from £39 shown in shop windows.

I am very short sighted, have astigmatism, wear varifocals and have my lenses thinned so my glasses are expensive. I can't do anything about it as I have to be able to see properly.

£500 is about what I would expect to pay unfortunately.

It does seem like a lot, does he have expensive lenses? My lenses are cheap as just really need them for computer work/ driving. It did cost £300 quid though for nice glasses plus free sunglasses ( spec savers bogof) as I paid extra for coatings.

I think if it’s something you are going to
wear everyday for a couple of years Then the cost per use is marginal and you are better to get something you like/ that suits you.

My lenses cost £275 last time, I spent another £200 on the frame. I could have gone for less on the frame but I wear these on my face every single day & I treated myself to the ones I really wanted. So they cost £475 in total.

They aren’t varifocals, they are for reading/TV only. He does have an eye problem, goes to the hospital sometimes.
I just think that if I wanted to spend that much I’d have a conversation, but if others think that’s about right then that makes me feel better!

Yes, as others have said, it depends on the prescription. I am very short-sighted and pay for thinner lenses. I bought new glasses before Christmas and they were just over £500. DD has a much weaker prescription and hers cost £200 from the same optician. Yes, my glasses are extortionate and I don’t choose to be short-sighted but I don’t want thick lenses either.

It actually annoys me that there’s no financial support for being short sighted. You want me to be a functional member of society, do you? Raising my kids, working my job etc takes clear vision & that costs me!

Fuck me from where?! I spent £100 and got two pairs

You have a low prescription. Not everyone does.

The absolute cheapest glasses I can buy cost me about £270 a couple of years ago. I imagine, like everything it's gone up now.

Add in an additional complexity to the lens and desire for a slightly more expensive or branded frame and I can easily see how you'd spend £500.