The Cheap Route

In the end, I just couldn't justify it.

I mean, if someone in our family was to spend big bucks on corrective eye surgery, it should be DW. Without her glasses or contact lenses, she is basically blind. If she drops her glasses on the floor, she is literally like Thelma, in Scooby Doo, on her hands and knees, feeling around for her specs.

After visiting a clinic for corrective eye surgery, I was leaning toward lens replacement surgery (Refractive Lens Exchange) over laser eye surgery because it was permanent and prevented ever having issues with cataracts—not that there's any history of that in my family.

But the $10,000 price tag is what ultimately got to me. That's a lot of great camera gear, or it would go a long way to paying off our Niro. It would be a nice vacation for our entire family.

It was even hard for me to reconcile the price of the laser eye surgery, which was half the price. I can be tight with a buck, and as I said, if anyone was going to pay this much to fix their eyes, it would be DW before me.

So I opted to update my eyewear with my new prescription. I would get myself a pair of progressive-lens glasses that would allow me to see my computer screen from a couple of feet away or read a book up close.

I returned to my optometrist's office to get a quote for glasses and to shop for frames. An eyewear specialist talked to me about the various types of lenses I could get: not just for reading computer screens and books, but ones that would be normal glass at the top, which I would use to see distances.

I wasn't looking to make glasses a permanent fixture on my face. I only wanted one pair of glasses for seeing things three feet away or closer.

When she quoted me the price for the lenses, I fought to conceal my shock. I was looking at $500 for the lenses and at minimum another $100 for the frames. The last time that bought prescription glasses, I paid just over $200 for the lenses and frames. I knew that progressives were more expensive and that it had been a long time since I had a pair of prescription glasses, but I wasn't prepared for a three-fold increase.

I thanked the woman for her time and asked for a printout of my prescription.

For several years, I've been wearing basic reading glasses and have several pairs around the house and in the car. I have magnifications for seeing the computer screen and another magnification for reading up close, but these reading glasses are the same magnification for both eyes.

My eyes are very different, with a 1.75 magnitude difference between them. My dominant eye takes over when I don these glasses. It could be why I get headaches after a long day at work, staring at my monitor.

I returned home from the optical shop feeling frustrated.

DW told me that for the past few pairs of glasses that she's bought, she has ordered them online. She suggested that I do the same. We measured the distance between my pupils and I took some information from the last comfortable pair of prescription glasses that I have, and we shopped on Zenni.ca.

I saw a couple of stylish glasses that I liked but I reminded myself that my glasses are only for reading up close and wouldn't spend much time on my face, with the exception of work, and who looks at me while I'm working from home?

I got simple black frames. Nothing fancy. Six business days later (yesterday), the glasses arrived in my mailbox.

They sit nicely on my face.

I can see fine while I'm in front of my computer and I can read off my smartphone with no problem. It took a couple of hours to get used to moving my head, not my eyes, to keep everything in focus. But so far (less than 10 hours as of writing this post), they're fine.

Total cost, including taxes: $169.

I may order another pair so that I have one in my home office and another in the car (I find that I often forgot to bring glasses with me when DW and I headed out to restaurants, and I would have to squint to read the menu or worse—have her read the menu to me).

I know I made a big deal about eye surgery a few weeks ago. But the stingy side of me came through. And considering that I've gone the cheap route for years, buying off-the-shelf reading glasses, this is actually a step up.

I still miss my old eyes but with these progressives, I won't have to muddle through when I'm trying to see things up close.