Budgeting for 4 Eyes

Today, glasses are a fun fashion statement. When I was in middle school, not so much. The poor unfortunate souls who happened to have less than 20-20 vision were teased unmercifully by fellow students. There weren’t any, “fun” frames and the lenses were nowhere near the quality of the lenses they make now. You either had “plastic” or real glass, lenses The plastic lenses scratched terribly and had bad optics (compared to current technology) and the real glass lenses were so heavy they hurt your face. How do I know? Mostly from my friends. I didn’t need or wear glasses when I was in middle school (I had braces and headgear instead-super cool right?).

Whether you need them for vision correction or just like to change up your look, glasses and contacts are pretty easy to come by. Want blue eyes, but have brown? No problem with colored contacts. Channeling your inner “sexy librarian?” There are frames for that.

I have vision insurance through my current employer, but previous jobs didn’t offer vision insurance (I also had good vision and didn’t need glasses, my things have changed). These days my vision isn’t terrible, but my ophthalmologist says that too much time in front of the computer is impacting my distance vision (hmm you don’t say?). Even though I now have vision insurance, I do everything I can to keep my “eye care budget” low.

Budgeting for 4 Eyes:

Contacts. To save wear on my contacts and make them last a little longer I try to wear glasses a few days a week. To keep track of how many times I’ve worn each pair (they’re the 30 day throw aways) I just put a little mark on my contact solution bottle with a sharpie. After 30 wears I toss them. I checked with my eye doctor first and he said this was totally fine as long as I keep them in the solution when I’m not wearing them.
Glasses. Glasses are so expensive! My first pair of glasses of “hip” glasses were a pair of red Burberry frames. They were about $350 and so cute. I had them for about 2 months before losing them on a dinner date (the date was with bf when we were first dating-aww). I took them off to be “cute” and forget them on the table at the restaurant. Surprise, surprise when I called the next day to see if anyone had turned them in, they were gone. $300 down the drain. I was so made at myself and so upset that I “threw away” $300 I told myself I’d never spend that much money on glasses again.

Needless to say, the next pair I bought was a cheapy pair from Coastal.com. I had a promo code, so I got them for free (just paid shipping). The irony? I still have that pair 3 years later and I get SO many compliments on them (far more than I ever got with the Burberry pair). Now I’m totally an online glasses convert. Why would anyone pay retail at the store when they can get them for a fraction of the price online? If you’re afraid they won’t look good on you (I was) most of the online glasses retailers now have special software that lets you download a photo and “try on” the glasses before you buy them. Don’t love them? You can send them back!
Contact Solution & Eye Drops. Coupons, coupons, coupons. Following the drugstore deals and combining coupons with sales almost always yields free and really cheap contact solution and eye drops. I’m not particular about the solution I use, and I’ll use any of the major brands. I’ve also used Target’s Up+Up (generic) brand in a pinch when I ran out of my free solution. I believe it was less than $3.50 for a standard size bottle and did the “job” just fine.

Eye Exams. If you don’t have any special eye issues or concerns there’s nothing wrong with going to the eye places in the mall. They can do a standard eye exam for about $100. I’ve also found some really good deals on Groupon and Living Social. Some even include a free pair of glasses with your exam.

Sunglasses. According to my eye doc, sunglasses aren’t just for style, they’re really important for your eye health. The sun’s rays can do irreversible damage to your eyes, so it’s important to keep them protected with sunglasses that have 100% UV protection (both UVA & UVB rays). You can buy a good pair for less than $20 (and sometimes even less, just make sure they have 100% UV protection). If you’re curious, the tint of the lenses has nothing to do with the protection they offer, i.e. darker glasses don’t mean more protection. I found a rather interesting article about sunglasses here.

OK “4 Eyes”, tell me how you save on eye care!

Image: Net_Efekt