(The following is an unpaid endorsement of a product and service.)
I’m angrier than a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs over this next subject: eyeglasses and why people pay excessive prices for glasses. When I was younger, my vision was great and I didn’t need glasses. As I grow older, however, my vision is becoming worse, which is why I need eyeglasses. But I don’t have vision insurance, so I’m screwed, right? Right? Wrong!
How would you like to pay as little as $6.95 for glasses, including lenses and frames, with $4.95 shipping? This means that you can get high-quality glasses for under $12.00. And if you order more than one pair at the same time, you only pay one shipping fee. This is a dream, right? This doesn’t exist in reality…right? Wrong!
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Zenni Optical! I’ve been ordering from them for years, but I decided that I would order some more as I haven’t done so in about a year. I put in my order on March 26, less than a week ago, keeping in mind that, of course, Sunday is not a mail delivery day, and now I’m wearing the new glasses.
I decided after the fact that I wanted another pair, so I placed another order, which means I paid two shipping fees. Had I been thinking properly, I would have placed both on the same order and I would have saved five bucks. But that was my mistake, not Zenni’s.
It’s very easy to order from Zenni, a company that has been making it affordable to purchase glasses for over twenty years.
First, though, you need a prescription, which means that you’ll need to go to an eye doctor. Problem is, not many doctors are willing to do just an eye exam, because frames and lenses are where they really make their money. That’s the real reason glasses cost so much out of pocket: greed. Even with eye insurance, you only get a certain amount for an allowance, and the rests comes out of your pocket.
You must enter your prescription first, because the website will tell you when you’re trying to order frames and lenses that are not available with your prescription. The biggest problem is PD. I’ve wanted several frames and lenses that are not available for my PD. It sucks, but at least the website alerts me so that I don’t wind up with a useless pair of glasses.
It is possible to find a doctor who will perform an eye exam for you, however. It just takes a little bit of research. Why would I want to pay $110 or more when I can order glasses for as little as seven bucks? Of course, the fancier the frames, the more they cost, but that’s to be expected and it’s reasonable.
Anyway, you’ll need to have the prescription handy when you create your free Zenni account and input that information into a new prescription on the website. It is laid out so that it matches your prescription, which makes data entry a breeze. It should only take you five minutes to create the account and enter your prescription. If it takes you longer, you’re not doing it correctly.
Your prescription should look something like this. It really is easy to put it in. The good thing is that Zenni will pop up an error message if you don’t enter things in correctly. And if you need help, customer support is available.
So what glasses did I get? Well, I’m not posting a photograph of me in said glasses, but you can take a look at what I ordered on the Zenni website. My second order, which should be here by Saturday, looks like this.
Perhaps a couple of questions remain: how does Zenni do it for so little? What’s the catch? Well, there is no catch. You really can get glasses for as little as seven bucks, and from there you can spend what you want to spend depending on what bells and whistles you want. And how does Zenni do it? They have their own facilities, unlike the others, who farm it out.
Also, Zenni is a patriotic company as they offer a military discount. All that matters is that you were in the military, not how long you were in, so if you joined and didn’t make it through basic training, you still gave my beloved country a blank check, so you get the discount. Of course, there is a verification process through ID.me, but once you’re verified, you’re locked in with a 10% discount. They verified me in less than two minutes.
I’m not the only one who had those questions, and as per usual, Reddit to the rescue!
I forget how I encountered Zenni, but I’m glad that I did. Let the suckers pay outrageous prices. The rest of us are saving a bundle!