Over 50? Take These Steps When You Shop for Eyeglasses

Making a selection often gets trickier—and more expensive—as you age.

- BRUCE HOROVITZ

LIFE is simpler when you're young. You can mow the lawn without breaking a sweat. Climb a tree without breaking a leg. Buy new prescription glasses in the blink of an eye.

But buying eyeglasses often gets more complicated somewhere around age 50. Single-vision lenses suddenly don’t help you decipher the small print on restaurant menus. Eye exams require more steps. Glasses get more layered, with add-ons for older folks with vision issues. And the prices for these more-complex glasses can shoot into the stratosphere.

Getting glasses may be more involved with age, but it need not induce as much stress as getting a new car. To help bring the process back to earth for folks 50 and older, we reached out to experts on vision and aging and have weaved their advice into this eight-step guide.

1. Get an exam. This advice might sound obvious. But to save a few bucks, too many people try to use old or even outdated prescriptions to get new glasses. An exam is a must. You can get one from your optometrist or ophthalmologist. Many eyeglass retailers will perform exams in their offices, too.

2. Shop around. Once you have an updated prescription, explore all your options for purchasing glasses. Most retailers offer package deals for frames, lenses and coatings, and these bundles can save serious money, says Michael Vitale, vice president of government relations at The Vision Council, a nonprofit trade association for manufacturers and suppliers of the optical industry. Some retailers also offer discounts on purchases of two pairs of glasses or more.

“The most common mistake is not to do comparison shopping,” says Catherine Roberts, senior health reporter at Consumer Reports. In 2022,