How Do You Save Money on Eyewear and Contacts?

Everyone in my family wears glasses, and one member in particular grew very adept at loosing them. Usually they just disappeared without explanation, like socks from a dryer, while occasionally there was a vague recollection of leaving them in a school locker or at the pool. One memorable episode found the glasses smashed to bits in the driveway, having been backed over by their owner. Having to continually replace lost, and crushed, glasses caused us to become regular customers of our optometrist’s eyeglass store, which was not cheap. Eventually they took pity on us and revealed the bargain bin, where they sold discontinued models at a deep discount. It might be worth asking if your eye doctor has a similar bin.

This year both my wife and I are in need of new glasses, and I decided to look for options other than the eye doctor’s shop. While looking around online I found some people mention buying eyewear at Walmart, Costco, Sams Club, JC Penny, Target and the lens stores such as Lens Crafters. Digging a little deeper I found that there are a lot of online options to purchase inexpensive contacts and glasses, which was news to this bargain bin digger. I am going to explore all of the online options I came across and probably give one of them a try. The following sites are what I have found so far.

Lens Shopper 

EyeGlasses

123 Contact Lenses

Vision Glasses 

Eye Glass Direct 

United Shades 

1 800 Contacts

Eye Buy Direct 

Goggles 4U 

Zenni Optical

39 Dollar Glasses 

I will write a follow-up to this letting you know what I decided on and how it went.

If you have bought your glasses and contacts online I would love to hear about your experience.