Both my husband and I have worn eyeglasses since we were children. As a result, Aaron had virtually no chance of escaping his wearing glasses too. Our little man has worn his specs for a couple of years now. He’s been complaining that things aren’t as clear, so it was off to get an exam we went. Kids eyeglasses shouldn’t cost a mint! My confidence in online eyeglasses was once again confirmed!
The exam was uneventful; as we expected, a new prescription was in order. It is said that we have “great:” vision insurance through my husband’s work. I don’t doubt this – we only had to pay a $10 co-pay for the exam. We then started to look at new frames for the new prescription. Aaron chose a pair of name-brand frames (Ray Ban). They were pretty pricey – $188 for the frames alone. I knew that the insurance picked up quite a bit of the cost, so we continued and I was only mildly concerned. How bad could it be, I thought. The kid only need single vision lenses and nothing fancy, right? It’s not like he’s wearing progressive lenses like I am. Oh, how naive I was!
We were helped by a super nice fellow — he remembered Aaron from last year. Aaron has a preference for red frames and he remembered. I had the guy work up the numbers with our insurance and thought that I was so glad to just get this all done in one shot. Little did I know…
The price? With nothing really fancy (no high-index or super fancy lenses), the total cost was $588 —-WHAT?! I get that $188 went toward the fancy frame, but $400 for single vision lenses? You’ve got to be kidding me! When did this happen?! This is just crazy town!!!!! Now, our insurance picked up $400 and my out of pocket would be $188, but that seemed crazy as I had paid much less than that for my progressive lenses.
After I caught my breath and recovered, I told the nice man that we had to think about it.
Honestly, that is just too much. I knew that we were saving money by getting our glasses online, but I simply didn’t really appreciate how much we were saving.
Dear Friends, if you find yourself in the same predicament, please consider getting your glasses online via a retailer such as zenni.com. We’ve gotten Aaron 4 pair of specs there and I’ve gotten at least 6 pair — you know how I love choices. I wear progressive lenses (formerly known as bi-focals) and the cost just can’t be beat! As a comparison, Aaron’s glasses have all been under $100 and my progressives have averaged about $120. Based on our most recent experience, this seems like highway robbery! It’s the real deal. The hardest thing you have to measure is your puplliary distance — and even then they have instructions on how to do it.
So, the moral of the story is that we’ll continue to purchase our eyeglasses from an online retailer. zenni.com, here we come!!!
Leave a Reply