Bad eyesight can be expensive. Luckily, the cost of glasses and contact lenses is coming down all the time. But to get the best deals, you’ll need to do some shopping around.
How I saved 72% on contact lenses
At last there is a retailer offering good quality, cut-price contact lenses – I’ve just ordered 64 daily disposable pairs (two months’ supply) for £19.96. That’s a saving of £52.04, or 72%, compared to what I used to pay for similar lenses from a high street retailer.
The company I’ve bought from is called Daysoft and is run by Ron Hamilton. Hamilton is credited with inventing daily-disposable contact lenses and sold the distribution rights to Bausch & Lomb. Once his five-year non-compete agreement with them ran out, he started manufacturing his own lenses and selling them online at serious discounts to the leading brands.
But are the Daysoft lenses any good? Alison Hunt and four colleagues at Lovemoney.com tried Daysoft lenses for a week earlier this year. Four of the five found their vision was as good with Daysoft as with their normal lenses. The testers found their eyes were slightly drier with Daysoft lenses. The lenses were thicker than those provided by Focus dailies and Specsavers easyvision, but were about the same as Acuvue.
Hunt’s conclusion was that the two people in her office who use Acuvue lenses would switch, while the rest wouldn’t, as they found their own lenses more comfortable. I use Acuvue lenses, so am going to give Daysoft lenses a whirl and, given the potential savings, I’d give them a go even if I used other lenses. Plus, if you don’t get on with them, you can return them so you won’t be out of pocket.
How to get a discount on your favourite brand
However, if you would prefer to stick with branded lenses, it’s still possible to save money. But buy in bulk and shop around. If I bought, say, twelve months’, rather than two months’, supply of my lenses – One Day Acuvue Moist – I could save £78 with Second Sight, or £24 with Tesco.
But remember: if you get your contact lenses from your optician, they usually throw in free contact lens checks. You still need to have these once a year regardless of where you get your lenses from in order to make sure your eyes are healthy. A check can cost from £20, so factor in that cost when you are shopping online.
Another thing to consider when ditching your high street contact lens supplier is what it will do to the price of buying glasses if you use both. I used to get a discount on my glasses purchases because I also bought my contact lenses from the same firm. But with so many discounted glasses for sale on the internet now (see below) it’s perfectly possible to still get cheap glasses even without any loyalty discounts from your optician.
Cut the cost of buying glasses
Online retailers don’t have the same overheads as high street opticians, so can offer glasses at often vastly discounted prices. So after you’ve had an eye test ask for a copy of your prescription – you are entitled to one by law – and then prepare to surf online.
For example, a pair of basic glasses costs from £25 at Specsavers, while designer specs will set you back anything from about £125. But head online and you can get a basic pair for £19 and designer ones for £49 from Glassesdirect. Or try Speckyfoureyes, where prices start from £12. That may sound too good to be true, but the Daily Mail’s Vincent Graff reviewed glasses from Speckyfoureyes.com last year and concluded that, while the frames felt “more flimsy” than his high street pair, they would still make “the perfect spare set”.
Other websites worth comparing prices on include Budgetspex, Selectspecs, Glasses2you and Spex4less.
When you’re ready to buy, make sure you enter your prescription correctly. If you get it wrong, the firm isn’t obliged to give you a refund once you have your glasses. For a guide to what your prescription means and how to transcribe it correctly, try this article – Understanding your prescription [pdf] – from glassesdirect.co.uk.
The other thing you’ll need to enter is your ‘pupillary distance’ – the distance between your pupils. Opticians may be reluctant to tell you this if you aren’t going to buy glasses from them. But get it wrong and your new glasses will be next to useless as the lens won’t line up with the centre of your eye. You can measure it yourself with the help of a friend. Onestopglasses.co.uk gives you a detailed explanation of how to measure your pupillary distance; however, getting it from a qualified optician seems the safer bet.
Lastly, when pricing up your online glasses purchase, factor in the cost of taking them to a high street optician to get them fitted properly after you’ve bought them. When Graff tested five different websites, no pair arrived fitting his head properly. Most high street opticians will fit them for you for a fee of around £20.
Bag a free eye test
If you work with computers, then you are entitled to a free eye test under health and safety laws. To find out more, see the Health and Safety Executive summary for Working with VDUs. Talk to your employer about arranging this. If you need special glasses to use your computer, your company should cover the cost of a basic pair. However, before you rush to hassle your personnel manager, bear in mind they are not obliged to provide you with a brand spanking new pair of designer frames!
• This article is taken from our weekly MoneyWeek Saver email.
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