Proud Purchase of 2012: Prescription Glasses for $15

by Annie Schutte

We asked our contributors to take a look back at their year in $$$. Annie Schutte recalled a top purchase.

There are four things that you should know about me:

1. I am basically the stereotype of a 20/30-something hipster school librarian — i.e. glasses and the color black are essential parts of my identity and daily wardrobe.

2. I am super cheap (this is a well documented fact).

3. I hate to shop and generally avoid it at all costs unless I can do it online.

4. I developed a particular distaste for glasses shopping about five years ago when a glasses sales person told me the glasses I wanted to buy “made my face look big.” Who says that??

All of these facts together mean that my life was basically transformed forever this year when I discovered the website Zenni Optical where you can buy ridiculously cheap prescription glasses. The most expensive pair is $46, I think, but most of them are more like $15. And I’m not talking about the frames — that $15 covers a complete set of glasses, and for a couple extra bucks you can make any pair into prescription sunglasses.

This isn’t even the best part. The best part is they have an incredibly addictive interface where you can upload a picture of your face, tell it your pupil width (I used the highly scientific stand-in-front-of-the-mirror-with-a-ruler method here), and then virtually try any pair of glasses on your face. It’s sort of like the online equivalent of being in one of those Clueless-esque outfit montages. Yes, I am a dork:

And no, I did not end up purchasing any of the amazing eyewear above, although I was tempted. What I ended up with were two amazing sets of glasses (one of which I almost never wear out of the house after I co-worker told they reminded him of Sally Jesse Raphael), delivered to my apartment in less than a week, all for the crazy price of $30 total.

Definitely the best $30 I spent all year. Trust me, I am much more excited about them than I look in these pictures.

Annie Schutte is an actual real life librarian. She is also cheap.

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