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?

That sounds normal to me, I often buy two pairs at the same time as I can usually find a bit of a discount.

This thread has done one thing for me.

I am not feeling ashamed anymore of spending £600 on my ‘utterly necessary, complex, high-tech, precision-engineered personalised medical device’.
ill also remind dh about that too

So thank you @DustyLee123 for starting this thread.

depends
my last glasses were 800 for 2 pairs. varifocals are expensive (but very worth it imo)

Can you imagine asking if hearing aids were expensive at £500? Or not caring if you knocked someone's hearing aid out?!

I have both vision correction and hearing enhancement. I really can't function well in society now without them, because my brain has adapted.

My contact lenses cost about £500 a year. My hearing aids come courtesy of the NHS. Don't mess with either of them!

I’d say varifocal are essential.

I tried once to only have the myopia plus astigmatism corrected. I couldn’t drive because I couldn’t see properly in the mirrors, couldn’t see the dashboard clearly (incl speedometer). They were very quickly changed into a pair of varifocal again

At this point we're basically cyborgs 👍

@TheCoffeeNebula 😁😁😁

Glasses wearer. I would say £500 is extortionate…..have said that I just bought a pair that cost exactly that, but it’s my first replacement pair in 12 years, so in terms of ‘worth it’ £41/year for the next 12 years for something that enables me to function normally is cheap. Previous glasses had been around £200

Yeah but "glasses wearer" needs context. Sounds like the OP's DH has complex vision needs, to the extent of occasional hospital visits.

@Geebray depends if it was £500 for the glasses frame or £500 including the prescription. You can’t really do much about the cost of the prescription/lenses, but you can get a frame for £20 online, so if the frame alone was £500 (as mine was) then that’s an extra £480 he didn’t need to spend.

@TheCoffeeNebula yes you have explained it well. People don't get how poor my vision is without my glasses on, even after explaining it to them.

I am shortsighted but now need glasses for reading as well so have varifocals. Really can't see much at all without glasses - couldn't see facial features well enough to know who someone else was etc.

The biggest issue when my glasses were knocked off my face was the leg was bent so the varifocals were not sitting at the right angle to see clearly.

lol at the thing about people telling you to 'look at this' when you're cleaning your glasses

Its like 'who said that?'!

I hate it when my glasses fall off the table at night or I take them off to do something. I literally can't see well enough to find them again and have to get someone else to do it. My DS has myopia and I've paid privately to get him corrective lenses, because in the long run it will be cheaper than him having to fork out for glasses or contact lenses with a prescription like mine. The optician said that often children's myopia is often worse than the parents.

I’m going to say lucky you.
My vision has never been stable enough to have the same glasses for 12 years.

And as discussed above, complex prescriptions costs money. A lot of money.

Very, very few people can keep the same pair of glasses for 12 years.

My last pair (£400) have lasted four years and I'll need new ones at my appointment next week. My pair before that lasted about three years and cost a similar amount.

That's a big expense to come up with every few years.

Mine were about £350 I don't think £500 is unusual. Especially if he has a complex prescription varifocals, anti glare coating and nice frames

@Geebray

I'm not sure my response is much different to a lot of other people's on this thread.
I gave an opinion and indicated what I've paid

My husband had a high prescription, and needs his lenses thinning out a bit, that on top of the cost of the frames meant his last pair coast around £425, £500 could be possible if it's a very designer frame.

If I didn't have my lenses thinned my glasses would weigh to much to wear comfortably.

Yes, and they weren't paying much attention either to the OP's posts.

The biggest issue when my glasses were knocked off my face was the leg was bent so the varifocals were not sitting at the right angle to see clearly.

Yeah, people who wear glasses with low power single vision lenses and nothing optically complicated going on, or who don't wear glasses at all, won't necessarily know how important it is to be looking through the correct part of the lens, at the correct angle, from the correct distance, when you need strong or complex lenses. I once got a new pair of glasses with a slightly incorrect pantoscopic tilt — couldn't explain what was wrong, but they just felt WRONG. Luckily I had an experienced dispensing optician who knew exactly what "it's just… WRONG" signified, and he fixed it in 30 seconds. Won't get that with cheap internet glasses.

I've learnt to stand stock still, avoid touching anything, and call plaintively for help

I know there's a strong environmental component to myopia, particularly low sunlight exposure, but I think the more severe myopia has to have a genetic component. With parents at -7 and -13, I was doomed to it IMO 🤣

I would not discuss with my DH
I would tell him what they cost

And again - the complexity of some prescriptions means that the choice of frames can be very limited. Typically I will be able to choose from three or four frames, not the full range because my prescription is such that I can only have it fitted into a small frame of a particular shape. I cannot update my frames in line with changing fashion for example. Current trend is for big frames- I can’t have those, so I’m stuck with paying close to a grand for untrendy specs that are on my face all day, every day.

How I wish I could have a frame at £20. With my prescription, I am very limited on frames. Usually having the choice of may be 3 or 4 frames to choose from. I cannot simply choose a pair online and have them made up.